Background/Discussion
Currently Public Works Operations handles over 12,000 customer phone calls annually. During snow season and other disaster events, the volume of calls increases significantly.
Many of the calls received are requesting services for issues related to potholes or other street maintenance, snow removal, signs, lighting, and sewer maintenance. A large number of our customer calls are also seeking information, not only information pertaining to Public Works, but other departments, organizations, utilities, and municipal activities within our city.
Public Works has developed technology and information resources that could provide a more online-friendly central source of information to our customers, along with an improved services requestor system. With the information available online, the public will not have to make multiple phone calls to find the answers to their questions.
The Public Works Customer Service Specialist is a proactive approach to providing information and updates to residents and the travelling public. The Public Works Information/Call Center will create and maintain resources and maps pertaining to snow removal, road construction, and other traffic disruptions, and make these resources readily available to the public.
The Customer Service Specialist will also consolidate functions and resources and serve as a central point for all divisions within Public Works where customer requests to repair infrastructure deficiencies are processed and managed through completion. The service request process includes receiving citizen reports of infrastructure deficiencies via telephone, internet, or in person; providing the appropriate level of service; data entry of pertinent service information; dispatching of the appropriate work center and/or assigning service requests; tracking and managing requests in the INFOR work order system; and providing accurate informative responses to our citizens.
Additionally, whereas the Division Secretary simply receives and reports or re-directs citizen inquiries and complaints, the Customer Service Specialist will see the complaint through to completion. They will track and manage requests to provide accurate and timely responses. Ultimately, we want to provide a caller with an answers, rather than an unwelcome response of “someone will call you back” or “you need to call this division/department instead”.
For the aforementioned reasons, Public Works is proposing to abolish one Division Secretary position and create a position of Customer Services Specialist.
The new position will be placed under the CWA bargaining unit at grade 16.
The position will be paid from two funding sources, 50% from the Sewer Fund and 50% from the Road Use Tax Fund. With the elimination of the secretary position, the additional cost for the new position is estimated to be $3,857 annually.