Cities move for slicker access with 311
Public service and information are hard to fathom from the Blue Pages. Blue Pages directories read like hieroglyphics, with none of the great storytelling. In the age of citizen empowerment, Blue Pages are too complex and too bureaucratic to empower anyone.
Municipalities know this, so instead they're moving hundreds of government departments out of the telephone book and onto a single number. Cities across Canada are swiftly moving to abolish the bureaucracy in favour of a simple 311 dial-in for access to the full range of non-emergency services.
Following massive 311 call centre installations in Baltimore, Chicago and New York, Canuck mayors in Calgary, Gatineau, Ottawa and Windsor have built consolidated call centres and rolled out 311 hotlines in the name of easier, more efficient public service. No longer will citizens have to figure out which department to deal with - the city will now take care of that.
Research by IDC Canada Ltd. finds cities are pushing for further innovation and cost savings and striving for increased efficiencies to meet rising service expectations.
Municipalities want government-wide intelligence on how they are meeting service standards, explains senior analyst Alison Brooks, and they're looking to information technology to improve call centre productivity.
"Canadian municipalities want to be able to measure and track user inquiry; they want to know where they're spending the bulk of their time and effort; to make business sense of things and to streamline processes," says Brooks.
The main driver for 311 is not cost savings but improved citizen access to municipal services, she adds.
According to the report, 44 per cent of the Canadian municipalities surveyed are currently using voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to achieve those efficiencies, and by next year that figure will rise to 64 per cent.
After improved access to services, performance management is one of the main reasons for upgrading to VoIP, says Brooks. "Municipalities have high expectations for metrics-related capabilities built into their systems," she says.
"They want real-time information on calls in progress, calls waiting, how many calls have been closed and logged, and the ability to gather data as a result of those calls."
Hold the line, please
But making the business case for VoIP isn't so easy. Canadian cities, particularly those with large jurisdictions like Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, are still sorting fuzzy hype from reality.
Each municipality has a unique set of circumstances, and finding the right business model is about as clear as finding the right government department in the Blue Pages. Only, there's greater risk attached to return on investment.
The City of Toronto has issued an RFP for consulting assistance to help determine the feasibility and business case for implementing VoIP. The city's contract with Bell Communications Inc. is up for renewal in 2009.
"We're a conservative organization; we want to make sure that if we do this, we do it right and it's going to work for all of our operations," says John Davies, executive director of IT.
"We have to be conservative because the hype gets ahead of the technology a lot of the times. The theory's great," he says, "but when you get around to the practice, there's a cost to this, and an issue there that I hadn't thought about, and all of a sudden it becomes a lot more complicated."
Continued:A call to return
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