The City of Lethbridge is celebrating one year of its 311 service.
The centralized customer contact centre was launched to provide residents with information on a number of city services.
After 12 months of operation, it’s been very busy for staff.
The City’s Corporate Services Manager, Travis Hillier says they couldn’t be more pleased with how things have gone.
“Not only have we been able to streamline customer service to our residents but we’ve improved our internal processes to be more efficient and effective,” says Hillier.
In the first year, 311 has fielded over 100,000 calls from the community. Of these, customer service specialists were able to provide direct answers to 86% of the callers, without any further action. Through 311, more than 24,000 service requests have been taken to be actioned by other City departments, with 6%of these being submitted online by residents.
Hillier says 311 has allowed the city to streamline services to residents and improve internal processes to be more efficient.
The Lethbridge 311 contact centre is available Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with an after-hours trouble line available at the same number for urgent requests like power outages and watermain breaks.
Hillier was asked this week if call centre staff have had any usual calls. “Probably the most interesting questions aren’t City of Lethbridge related,” chuckled Hillier. “We’ve had people calling and asking how to spell certain words and even advice on how to get married in exotic locations! We do our best trying to answer those things, but we want to remind people our things is Lethbridge programs and services”
The 311 system is integrated with other City technology to easily log customer inquiries and issue service requests to the appropriate department, when needed. Data from the new system helps support decision making and City improvements. Lethbridge 311 also provides additional capacity for connecting with residents during big events or emergency situations.
(With files from City of Lethbridge)