By Mary Frances Hill
June 16, 2009
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VANCOUVER -- A streetlamp’s burnt out, that pothole has grown to the size of a child’s swimming pool and there must be a mistake on your property tax assessment.
Who ya gonna call?
The city’s new 311 service, a direct-contact telephone system that connects callers to a person or department at city hall, went into operation last week. Its “soft” launch, during which it’s in operation, began Monday.
The service allows Vancouver callers to dial three numbers — 311, no area code needed.
The city expects 38 “Citizen Caller Representatives” to be running the 311 contact centre 24 hours a day starting this fall. This summer, 31 are on staff.
Until the fall, the 311 contact centre will run from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.
“It opens up all the information and service to city hall to citizens,” said Barbara Pearce, manager of 311 Business Planning for the city of Vancouver. “We will be accountable to citizens with everything we provide.”
That accountability isn’t yet clear to some city employees. Brian Seidman, a Vancouver cyclist curious about the city’s bicycle program, called the centre last Friday at 10:30 a.m. and was pleasantly surprised.
“The person [who answered] was more helpful than usual. They were persistent about finding a person I could talk to. When a city employee returned his call, he sounded surprised to learn Seidman found his name through 311.
“He asked me, ‘Did you get my name from 311?’ They were really concerned that I found out they were working on that project.”
Pearce said the employee may have reacted that way because the system is being introduced to city departments in phases.
The line began in an under-publicized, or “soft” launch, to allow operators to become more efficient, and work out any technological faults.
“We’re trying to keep it quiet because we don’t want to raise expectations that people can dial 311 and get whatever they want. The more we know about what we need to fix, the better prepared we’ll be.”
They’ve found one bug: people calling from company offices that require people to dial “9” before a number get a busy signal when they call 311.
Callers who speak languages other than English will be connected to Language Line, a service that provides translators in 175 languages.
Vancouver joins Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, St. John’s, NL, Windsor, Ont., and even Fort St. John in welcoming the service.
Toronto launches its own 311 call system July 19.
Pearce said that aside from its convenience for callers, it will be an efficient tracking service. “Now we’ll be able to track what people are calling about, how frequently they are calling, and find out how quickly the issues are resolved.”
The system is a popular product of Lagan Technologies, a Northern Ireland-based company with U.S. headquarters in Maryland.
On Tuesday morning, four calls to the 311 service proved relatively painless, apart from the four minute wait, accompanied by a Muzak version of a Kenny G-like clarinet solo.
Pearce said a four-minute wait for a connection is far too long. “We expect that by the fall, we’ll be connecting 80 per cent of callers within a minute.”
mfhill@vancouversun.com