Insights From a Week as a 311 Operator in N.Y.

By ELISSA GOOTMAN May 14, 2010

THE lovely sounding gentleman on the other end of the line was simply trying to improve his corner of the world. Instead, he was rapidly losing faith in city government. As I placed him on hold for the third time, I heard him mutter: "She's having a hard time finding it! It was on 1010 WINS this morning!"

Indeed, how could an operator at New York City's vaunted 311 help line be utterly clueless about a tree giveaway program that was just talked up on the radio? (Then again, why didn't the lovely gentleman just call the radio station?)

I swallowed hard, mindful of a fellow call-taker's sage advice: "Smile through that phone!" It was my third day in a week sitting in as a 311 operator, a reporter's gamble that the questions, concerns, fears, suspicions, frustrations and gripes of city residents would paint a revealing portrait of the city itself. So there I was, wildly typing phrases the caller heard on 1010 WINS into 311's extensive, continuously updated database: "Free tree," "Earth Day," "Jamaica Bay Wildlife." Finally, something clicked.

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"311" service was highly touted when it was introduced in several large cities. Now newspaper reports like this show up its problems.

In my opinion, "311" is a big waste of money.

A more efficient use of funds and to better serve the public would be having the following:

-- A clear understandable web page, that is indexed by both specific actual names of city departments and typical functions, and the general phone number. One problem of web page 'search' options is that they dig up EVERYTHING which means lots of irrelevent garbage. So if a citizen types in "street repair" they will find a long list of reports, public hearing minutes, city council resolutions, all dating back years. But they will NOT find the phone number of the street repair department. (This has been my actual experience on multiple municipal "user friendly" web pages).

-- Every city agency should have a general phone number that is answered (yes, actually answered, not left to ring and ring...) by a knowledgeable person aware of the department's functions. That person would either be able to take down the citizen's request or route the call to the proper person.

-- There should be a general city number answered by trained operators aware of the different city departments.

-- City managers have to take an _honest_ look at what complaints and requests citizens are calling for and how they respond to such calls. Very often the reality is that they simply don't have enough people and time to answer every call. Creating a "311" center does nothing to solve that problem, as we see by articles like this.

-- City employees should be trained in telephone courtesy, have a copy of the city directory handy, and be able to transfer calls they mistakenly receive.

Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but the old Bell System used to train businesses and govts on how to serve the public by telephone. The technology has changed a little bit, but the basic principles remain the same. It amazes to see people today in offices (govt and private sector) who don't even know how to transfer a telephone call or proper telephone manners.