Contra Costa Times -
Feb 16,2005
By Cassandra Braun
STAFF WRITER
PLEASANT HILL - The city hopes to make good on its campaign to provide stellar customer service, with help from new software that puts the governed closer in touch with officials and further advances a trend in which local governments are viewing their residents as customers.
Pleasant Hill recently contracted with Comcate, a San Francisco-based software company, to use its service-request tracking software. It provides city staff with a way to receive, sort and track resident requests and/or complaints through all city departments in the hopes of making the local government more responsive to its population, or customers.
For instance, a resident sends an e-mail request to a public works department for a pothole repair. The city manager can then check the status of the request, when it was fixed, and how responsive the department was. (...)
"We get far too many e-mails to be aware of all the e-mails coming through," Ramsey explained. "There's no system to track response to folks. For instance, if someone was on vacation, that request could sit in someone's e-mail in-basket with no response for weeks."
Ramsey began searching four years ago for software that would help track such requests when it became clear that e-mail inquiries would continue to grow. Around the same time, he was approached by Comcate's founder and software developer, Ben Casnocha, a 16-year-old from San Francisco.
The software grew from a tech project that Casnocha put together in sixth grade to create a community service Web site. It acted as a sort of middleman between residents and local agencies.
Over the course of the project's life, Casnocha learned first-hand how unresponsive many local government agencies could be, and he started talking to various city mangers, staff members and council members to develop a software that would remedy such gaps.
"When he first contacted me, the name of the system was 'Complain and Resolve,'" Ramsey recalled of Casnocha's original vision. "I assured Ben if he was hoping to be commercially successful, the last thing you want to present to a city manger (is a program) and begin it with 'Complain.' I really wasn't looking to partner with someone who would encourage people to complain."
Casnocha did heed some of Ramsey's key suggestions. The first, that agencies would likely bite if the software did not require additional hiring of staff, was easy to use and versatile.
"When we worked with cities at staff level, people were using Post-It notes or they didn't know that a colleague in Public Works was doing duplicate work," recalled Casnocha, a junior at University High School in San Francisco. "We learned first-hand about the range of sophistication when it comes to dealing with citizen complaints."
Aside from being used as an organization and processing tool, by taking cues from the private retail sector, local governments like Pleasant Hill are now using such tools to enhance the quality of services they provide to residents -- the people they have now come to view as customers.
"I do see a trend in cites that are trying to modernize and streamline, and still keep that personal touch," Casnocha said. "How can we use technology to deliver service in a more efficient manner?"
"We're trying to transform government from what a cynic would call a bureaucratic dinosaur to an entity that is dynamic, responsive," he continued. "The local level is where services are delivered every day, that's where customers can see real changes taking place."
The tracking software is marketed to small to mid-size cities like Pleasant Hill that want to improve customer service but cannot afford to hire additional staff to log and oversee timely responses to requests. Several California cities, including Orinda and Vallejo, use the software.
But this customer service trend is not new, said Concord City Manager Ed James.
"Sure, there's a mantra for most governments to improve customer service," said James.
In fact, Concord uses its own internal tracking system, he explained.
As with any agency, especially one that is tied to public funding, once the tracking tools are in place, the challenge becomes following through with the prompt service.
"Those systems have been around for a while. Any kind of system like that, you still have to be committed to being responsive and do all that," James said. "The fact that you got that software doesn't mean you're going to respond -- that takes a human being. The machine isn't going to do that for you."
Rich Ricci, Pleasant Hill financial director, agreed. The software's effectiveness will be seen in the city's responsiveness.
"Time will tell. The key to all of it is, when you say it, you better deliver on it," Ricci said. "If you have the assumption that you're going to be responsive and are not, it could backfire."
Still, Ramsey said if a department is discovered to be less than ideally responsive, the software will allow the city to pinpoint those breakdowns, and then figure out solutions.
"It helps us do a better job of monitoring and quantifying how well we are doing in responding," Ramsey said. "It then becomes a management tool to help us improve ... If a department has a consistently low score, then we have to sit down and figure out why that is."
And if the software indicates more manpower is needed?
"That's a possibility but unlikely since we now have a flexible hiring freeze," Ricci said. "Even if a demand came in that exceeded our potential to deliver on it, we could always relocate people."
The city hopes to have the software up and running by late spring, at which time residents will be able file requests by e-mail through the city's Web site.
(Article abridged.)
