Municipal CRM Showcase Brief: Reno, NV Shares the Operations of its RenoDIRECT Non-Emergency Call Center

Waterbury, CT (PRWEB) April 14, 2008 -- Community Liaison Michael Chaump and Senior Management Analyst Jaime Schroeder presented an in-depth overview of their non-emergency initiative, RenoDIRECT, to a group of their peers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the Municipal CRM Showcase.

RenoDIRECT is a phone based seven digit citizens call center with full-time Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) working five days a week from 6:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m. Citizens who do not know where to begin when contacting the City of Reno can call one centralized phone number. All CSRs have computer access to hundreds of frequently asked questions (FAQs) that citizens often call about. This allows staff to answer most questions in one call. Additionally, a citizen relationship management (CRM) system is used to track issues and create service requests to deal with issues such as pothole repair, graffiti removal, and traffic signal outages. The customer call center continues to experience a steady growth rate increasing from an initial annual total of nearly 33,000 communication occurrences to over 50,000 in 2007.

Additionally, RenoDIRECT provides statistical analysis reports to departments to ascertain workloads and resources, which ultimately improved department response times. During its first year the average time for the city to complete a service request was 20 days. In 2007, since implementing the QAlert Municipal CRM system, that average time has fallen to 3 days.

With QAlert, citizen service requests or complaints can be entered by city staff or citizens themselves through the Reno website at www.cityofreno.com. Each entry is automatically assigned a ticket number and instantly routed via e-mail to the department responsible for handling the request. Once issues are addressed, the citizens are automatically notified of the resolution. Since implementing their non-emergency call center 91% of their citizens rate their experiences with the City as positive.

For more information about RenoDIRECT or the QAlert Municipal CRM system, contact QScend Technologies at sales(at)qscend.com or 888-878-3006.

About QScend Technologies, Inc.

QScend Technologies, Inc. (www.qscend.com) is an industry leader in Web-based software solutions and services for municipalities. More than 2,000 QScend product users access the company's series of "Q" products for a variety of citizen service related functions, including website content management, electronic newsletter distribution, citizen service request management, and 311 call center functionality.

Located in Waterbury, Connecticut, QScend was the first company to relocate into the City's Information Technology Zone. The company also offers custom website design, application hosting, and e-mail solutions for its customers.

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