Plant City is stepping back in time with its new Customer Engagement Center.
Taking a page out of the books of history, the city has created a two-man unit to act as a live customer service one-touch center for residents calling into city hall. In the past anyone wishing to get in touch with a specific department had to listen to an automated response and hit the corresponding buttons to transfer them where they needed to go.
Now when they pick up the phone they will be greeted by a real person who will track the answer down to nearly any question.
“This has been one of our core strategies, one of the things I’ve wanted to do since I first stepped into this job,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said. “We’re created an entire one-touch customer service center. When you call you’re going to be talking to a real person, not a machine.”
The two operators are available during business hours and the city will transition back to its automated response after the work-day has ended.
The center officially opened Monday and the two operators took 267 calls during their shift. The average answer time was only 18 seconds.
McDaniel said the operators act as ambassadors for the city and rather than have callers play leap-frog among all the departments repeating their stories and requests over and over until they reach the right person the operator will take the call and find the answer for them.
“They were answering a lot of questions about, ‘How do I access this service?’” McDaniel said. “We actually had reports of dead animals in the streets and we handled those with our new event management system so solid waste would know where those incidents were and be able to deal with them. We even answered one question, someone called into city hall and asked, ‘How do I get married?’ And we were able to provide that answer to that citizen.”
The one-stop-shop means if someone calls about a pothole the staff member will take the information and send a work request into the roads department. They will ask the caller if they wish to be updated and if so will keep them in the loop on how things are progressing.
It’s a way to further strengthen the bond of the city and its residents, McDaniel said, and the hope is soon people will feel more comfortable reaching out to have any lingering questions answered. Community engagement is a key part of the city’s growth and as the center continues to flourish residents will be able to create a relationship with the city if they so desire.
Soon McDaniel said the center will also have a working email address so those who don’t want to pick up the phone can email their questions or requests to the center and one of the two assigned staff members will be able to promptly respond with everything they need. Social media may also soon be a major part of the center with guests being able to use sites like Facebook to interact with the city, but that is still up in the air.
For now, the center will be open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. If both operators are on the line an estimated wait time will be repeated to the caller to let them know how long they have to wait. Most calls are completed within a minute or two and waits so far are minimal.