December 21, 2021
Increasing citizen satisfaction while reducing support costs for touchpoints is every municipality’s goal. It is especially true when facing budget shortfalls and staffing shortages due to the continued impact of COVID-19. Implementing 311 can help you achieve both of these goals. In addition, it takes the burden off of your 911 system from citizens calling for non-emergency events such as sidewalk and road repairs, noise complaints, dangerous animal complaints, and sewer problems, to name a few.
In 2015, the City of Grand Rapids completed Grand Rapids 311, centralizing their city services call center and revolutionizing how citizens interact with the City. By dialing 3-1-1, customers can speak to a single city ambassador for assistance with nearly all City services. Customers experience shorter call times to resolve their issues, and the City reduced staff and saved money without sacrificing service. The City utilized Microsoft Dynamics CRM to support call center workflows. Upon completing the project, then City Manager Greg Sundstrom said Grand Rapids 311, “Transformed and vastly improved customer service here in Grand Rapids.”
After the Grand Rapids project, Dewpoint brokered sharing the Microsoft Dynamics instance with Kalamazoo, saving time and money. Our project and change management experience guided City officials to establish goals and project governance for an efficient rollout with increased buy-in from City staff. We captured and documented the response scripts that enabled a single 3-1-1 agent to resolve questions for any department. Following completion, Dewpoint supports the systems by updating or making changes needed to the Cities’ CRM instance.
“…for us to continue to improve and continue to get where we are, Dewpoint has been a fantastic partner for us. They have really helped us with the 3-1-1 call center, which we did fairly quickly. Dewpoint did a lot of work for us on the backend to make that happen, and they have supported our ambassadors and our system.” Tim Dubois, CIO, City of Kalamazoo
If you are thinking about starting a transformation for your citizens, contact us. Dewpoint can help by applying our experience and lessons learned from the City of Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. We have the proven methodology and professionals who have “done this before” to kick start your process so you can implement 311 faster and improve your citizen’s experience.