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San Francisco City HallSan Francisco, CA –Today, Mayor Gavin Newsom answered the one millionth call to the 311 Customer Service Center. The "one-stop" government services call center answers questions about all city services and records citizen input about any issue related to city government. 311 was established in 2006 and launched in spring 2007.
"Today, I am pleased to announce to announce a true milestone in government efficiency," said Mayor Newsom. "The beauty of 311 is that it is a constantly evolving program. We have exceeded even our own expectations, and we plan to integrate even more city services, connecting and transforming communities, neighborhoods and businesses."
Since the launch of 311 in March, the center has received more than a million calls, well ahead of the 1.5 million expected for the first year of service. When first launched, 311 received around 20,000 calls a week. Now, the center receives more than 50,000 calls a week. Based on the pace of calls, the City now expects to reach approximately 2.3 million and 2.4 million calls by year’s end.
Using 311 makes it possible for residents to bypass the over 2,300 telephone numbers that existed previously to access city services. Additionally, 311 reduces calls to the City’s 911 center, where over 50% of calls received are for non-emergency services. With a budget of $9.8 million, the 311 center budget is less than two-tenths of a percent of the City’s overall budget.
Calls to the center are answered by 44 customer service representatives. The center is equipped with the Language Line service, which serves callers in over 145 languages. Using state-of-the-art customer relationship management technology, a customer service representative assists callers with service requests for any variety of city services including MUNI
schedules, pothole reports, or permit information requests. It also provides callers with a service request number so that they can track progress in fulfilling their request, while getting the request in the hands of the responsible person within a department. This enables the City to track how quickly departments are responding to constituent requests for services.
"The public’s overwhelming access of the 311 service underscores our efforts to make government more accessible and city services responsive to the changing needs of our residents," said City Administrator Ed Lee.
Since launching in April, the 311 Call Center has answered over 4,800 calls on a daily basis, answers over 80% of calls within 60 seconds, and handles most calls within 3-4 minutes.
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