www.kirklandwa.gov MEMORANDUM To: Kurt Triplett, City Manager From: - - PDF document

CITY OF KIRKLAND

City Manager's Office

123 Fifth Avenue, Kirkland, WA 98033 425.587.3001 www.kirklandwa.gov

MEMORANDUM To: Kurt Triplett, City Manager From: Sara Mallamo, Customer Service Program Lead Tracey Dunlap, Deputy City Manager Date: January 21, 2020 Subject: OurKirkland Update RECOMMENDATION: To update City Council on the City’s Constituent Response Management (CRM) system, OurKirkland, which was launched to the public on March 11, 2019. BACKGROUND: As part of the 2017-2018 mid-biennial budget process, the City Council authorized the purchase and implementation of a Constituent Response Management (CRM) system to help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of City communications with residents, businesses, and customers in general. The project was led by the City’s Customer Service Program Lead, Sara Mallamo. This memo will summarize system activity, adjustments made to the system since inception, and vendor updates. QAlert is Kirkland’s CRM system, called OurKirkland for the public. System Activity The system was launched to the public on March 11, 2019 and this update reflects activity through December 31, 2019. During that time, the City received 3476 service requests. The system generated table below lists the total requests by department.

Council Meeting: 02/04/2020 Agenda: Special Presentations Item #: 7. a.

Department 1 - Open 2 - Progress 3 -Closed Total Public Works Ma int.

49

1559 1608

Planning

2 278 280

Public Works CH

2 223 225

Finance

3 209 212

City Council

2 206 208

CMO

1 2 142 145

Parks & Community Svs

2 139

141

Building

97 97

Police

4 66

71

HR

2 8 10

IT

7 7

Fire

Requests can be submitted in three different ways and the information below summarizes the used origin for request submittal:

• 1. Website – 1,652
• 2. Staff intake (staff enters in the system from a phone request or e-mail) – 1,399
• 3. Mobile App – 425

The system tracks the “average days to close a service request” and the results by month are shown below (note that January and February reflect test data before the system go live): The increase in average days to close and subsequent actions to diagnose and address the cause is discussed further below. The City’s most frequently used service request types in the last 30 days are shown below.

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Refinements Based on feedback received from different work groups and users to date, the following actions have been completed: 120-day check in: Met with stakeholder teams and evaluated efficiencies and/or gaps with their departments service request types. The findings during these meetings resulted in minor adjustments, but staff is regularly evaluating and analyzing service gaps. Lucity integration: The average days to close a Public Works service request was climbing during the Fall months. The GIS team assisted to diagnose a system issue between the QAlert and Lucity Integration. Lucity is the GIS-based Public Works and Parks maintenance management system that logs and tracks all maintenance activity such as pothole repair, street sweeping, catch basin clean out and much more. Items closed by staff in Lucity were not being recorded as closed in QAlert. After analyzing the issues, the integration script was updated and all open Public Works Maintenance Service Requests were audited. Workflow adjustments: Public Works and Parks Maintenance changed their response business model to improve customer response times and the average days to close a service request type. Originally, staff would manually push the service request to Lucity, “add activity” to the request that would go back to the submitter and leave the request open until complete. Due to multiple reasons, maintenance type requests can stay open anywhere between days to months, which was affecting the overall City’s average days to close reporting. To ensure that the requestor knows that their request has been received and processed, the most recent process is to close the request once it is manually pushed to Lucity with the following closing message: “Thank you for contacting the City of Kirkland's Public Works Department. Your service request has been transferred to our public works maintenance work order system. If future follow up is needed you may contact (425) 587-3900.” This provides the requestor with a path to request status if their request is not processed

• immediately. If the request is not for a service that the City does not provide (for example,

it is related to Northshore Utility District services), a message is sent providing that information. Workflow Escalations: To improve response times, a ladder of escalation was implemented. The request escalates back to responsible staff at the fifth business day, their supervisor on the seventh business day and their Director on the fifteenth business day. Items that are

• utstanding longer than 30 business days are escalated to the System Administrator.

Submit Anonymously: Some constituents would fill in their contact information but check the box on the Contact Tab to submit anonymously. To keep this from occurring, the check box was removed, and a disclaimer was added to the top of the Contact tab that reads:

EOC: The last EOC simulation included feeding QAlert service requests to the teams to practice how the system could possibly be utilized by constituents. The use was successful and identified gaps for training and utilization. Storm Response: Built out service request types such as “snow/ice removal, fallen tree and post storm flooding” to activate during a storm. During the most recent storm QAlert had 112 storm response service requests generated. The map below shows those requests graphically. Brown (5) = Fallen Tree Purple (107) = Snow/Ice Removal

Location Details Contact Info

If you would like to submit anonymously, please do not fill out any information on this page and be aware that you will not receive a reply from the City

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Vendor Update On December 29th, 2019, QScend Technologies, Inc released version 10.3 of QAlert. With this update came a new user interface and an “On-Hold” action. These two updates required an update to all training documentation. This has been completed, distributed to Directors and updated on KirkNet. The “On-Hold” action allows staff to put a service request on hold that may take a substantial amount of time to be completed. Before staff can utilize this Action, they must gain approval from their Supervisor and the System Administrator. Feedback In addition, the City has received positive feedback from users, for example: External System User “I am writing to praise the City of Kirkland for the new free app "Our Kirkland". I have requested three items (graffiti cover up at a park restroom; a curb repair; and sidewalk weeding along NE70th from 116th to 132nd!) All three projects were acknowledged and then completed in a short amount of time. Most impressive and I am grateful. Kudos for great customer service.” Internal Manager “This has been an invaluable resource for us Sara, thank you!!” Continuous Improvement The purpose of OurKirkland is to provide responsive service to our community. Staff will continue to gather feedback and refine the system and processes with the goal of always improving our customer service. Examples of focus areas for improvement in 2020 are to train all responding staff in how to communicate through the system, as well as develop a consistent protocol for when a constituent is not satisfied with the answers provided through OurKirkland. Staff will provide periodic updates to the City Council throughout the year on these and other efforts related to improving OurKirkland.