The 411 on 311
CBRM setting up phone service to offer information about municipal services
Uncertain about what day to put your garbage curbside? Don’t know what public works district you fall under? The Cape Breton Regional Municipality is working to set up a 311 phone service to try to better assist residents of the region looking for information about municipal services.
CBRM director of technology John MacKinnon said it will take time to actually get 311 activated, as it’s federally regulated and that work has already begun, but there will also be a central phone line that residents can dial to have their non-emergency inquiries directed which will be in place this fiscal year.
The CBRM has issued a request for proposals for a consultant with experience in setting up such a service, replacing reliance on pages of phone listings in the blue pages of the phone book or trying to track down the correct phone number on the CBRM’s website. Council has passed a motion to go ahead with the project.
“It’s a contact centre,” MacKinnon said. “Right now, if you look at our blue pages we have upwards of 150 phone numbers in there that vary from solid waste to tax to public works north, central, east, all that stuff. So, what’s going to happen, you’ll be able to dial 311, it will come in and it will direct you to different areas and at the end of the day you’ll get an operator that will hopefully answer your question.
“The big thing for us, it’s about doing a better job in customer service.”
The only existing 311 service in the province is in Halifax. There may be some capital costs associated with setting up the service but MacKinnon said it’s believed it will actually save the CBRM money through efficiencies.
When a call comes in, it will be relayed to the person responsible who will then follow up.
Currently, if someone calls a particular number and that person is off or is sick, they can leave a message but it may take some time to get a response, MacKinnon said.
“We just don’t have the depth within individual departments to have full back-filling when things are going on,” he said.
Such a system would have been useful during the Thanksgiving 2016 flood, MacKinnon said, noting it took a couple of days to get the flood hotline up and running.
“It is basically self-contained so you can ramp up or ramp down based on things that are potentially going to happen,” MacKinnon said.
There will also be provisions for people to text or email rather than
“Right now, if you look at our blue pages we have upwards of 150 phone numbers in there that vary from solid waste to tax to public works north, central, east, all that stuff. So, what’s going to happen, you’ll be able to dial 311, it will come in and it will direct you to different areas and at the end of the day you’ll get an operator that will hopefully answer your question.”
CBRM director of technology John MacKinnon
call that can be tracked via ticket, he said.
The system will allow the municipality to better track why people are calling, MacKinnon said, and give ideas where education and training should be focused.
“It could be anything, it could be
traffic accidents, it could be any of this stuff that people are calling about, we’ll be able to have a better sense of what’s going on within the region” he said.
The tender closes June 28.