CRM without 311

Moreno Valley, Calif., elected officials' desire to track resident complaints motivated them to begin using a CRM system, but the city was not ready to establish a 311 center. “There is a perception that a 311 call center should be tied to CRM, but I believe we want to get our system out on the Web first,” says Dori Lienhard, enterprise systems application supervisor. “Creating an FAQ list on the Web would handle a lot of the same kinds of calls.”

Moreno Valley officials began by choosing two processes they felt would benefit from automation — calls to the city council and the Maintenance and Operations Division — and tied them into a CRM system by Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Dynamics. Presently, residents who call the city manager's office to lodge complaints speak to a staff person who logs a service request into the CRM system and routs the information to the appropriate department. The entry becomes a case that can be tracked throughout the process by city employees. The CRM ties into the city's Microsoft Outlook e-mail system, Lienhard says, and all e-mails and actions then become a part of the case record so city council members and appropriate staff know who did what and when, and how many cases remain open.

Now one year into implementation, the CRM system has been tied into the city's geographic information system (GIS), so council members and department heads can see, at any time, what is happening in a particular district. The GIS tie-in has proven useful for council members to stay on top of quality-of-life issues in their districts, such as excessive noise complaints and instances of vandalism. “It really helps at election time,” Lienhard says, because council members can promote how quickly and efficiently they address problems in their districts.

Moreno Valley officials plan to start rolling out the CRM to the rest of the departments, starting with the Economic Development and Code Compliance Divisions. Once all departments are connected, the request system will be available to the public on the Web.

Like Moreno Valley, Arvada, Colo., a 105,000-resident suburb of Denver, has a CRM system without a 311 component. When residents call the main city phone number, they reach a voice-activated system by Blacksburg, Va.-based Tele-Works that records the service request and routs it to the correct department.

Officials expect a large increase in residents' use of the CRM technology when it is available online this month, says Vicki Reier, assistant to the city manager. There will be an icon for the system on the city home page, where residents can click to find answers to commonly asked questions or request a service, such as filling a pothole or trimming a tree.

The system will create a ticket and distribute the work without tying up a phone line or requiring the resident to call the next day when city offices are open. Residents will receive a tracking number so they can check on the status of their request. “The internal tracking and reporting components will be really important,” Reier says. “Now if we say we fix potholes in three days, we can see if we really do it.”

Extending CRM's reach

New York has set strict goals for its 311 call center staff, and it can track their performance using the reporting feature of its Siebel CRM software purchased from Oracle. City officials refer to the CRM software to see how well the call center is meeting its goal to answer 80 percent of calls in 30 seconds or less with a maximum wait time of three minutes.

Since opening in March 2003, the call center now handles approximately 40,000 inquiries a day, says Nicholas Sbordone, spokesperson for the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. In-house call center representatives can answer questions in English and Spanish, and the center outsources to translators for service in 180 different languages.

These days, New York's 311 service is used as an outreach tool for city departments, Sbordone says. For example, the Department of Consumer Affairs encourages low-income earners to call 311 and learn about the Earned Income Tax Credit program. Likewise, the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene runs an annual campaign to distribute free smoking cessation patches and advertises that anyone interested in quitting smoking can call 311 and ask for a free smoking cessation kit. “There are 8.2 million people in the city, but all they need to know is one number to get someone to take care of a problem,” Sbordone says.

Cities with CRM technology expect to make even greater in-roads into customer service in the years ahead. Houston has begun looking at predictive dialing — which automates outgoing calls — for its customer satisfaction program. Denver plans to allow residents to pay traffic tickets, permit fees, and property taxes either online or over the phone with an agent. And, Albuquerque has begun using CRM with 311 to sell event tickets online. “The main benefits are that we know what citizens are asking and how quickly we're filling their requests,” Osterloh says. “[CRM allows us] a better use of resources.”

Annie Gentile is a Vernon, Conn.-based freelance writer.