Public Services Director Ken Unger, streamlines office customer service

Do you know you can make a Public Services request online now? Why would one want to make a public services request online when they can make a phone call? Public Services Committee Vice-Chair Rolland White and Public Services Director Ken Unger address this question.

At a recent Public Services Committee Work Session, White explained that the two Public Services office staff currently answer 16 or 17 calls daily.

White said the previous Director of Public Services told him he did not have a secretary because the office staff spent all their time taking calls. White said, “It is hard for them to do much else when they must take all these calls. That is where the [Public Services Request] Form comes in.”

Unger said, “The 16 or 17 calls each staff answer daily is nothing compared to when I started the job. The only thing the office staff did was take calls. If you wondered why things did not get through to somebody, that is why because they were constantly on the telephone. Think about the logistics of that. If they get a message from somebody, they must relay it to the appropriate person. Things get lost in the fray when they take hand notes and constantly answer calls. When I started this job over a year ago, well over 1,000 calls a week were coming into the Public Services Office.”

Unger did two things that helped remedy the difficulties of the high call volume:

  1. Unger said they used the digital phone system to sequence the calling structure so that the call went to one person, and if they were on the phone, it went to the second person. If the second person was also on the phone, the call was routed back to the first person in case they were now free to take a call. If the first person was still on the phone, the call went to voicemail. This still resulted in many voicemails that needed to be listened to.
  2. Unger said the second part of the plan to help run a more efficient office and provide better service to the residents was to develop an online Public Services Request Form. Unger continued, “The form is critical because it eliminates a lot of phone calls.” The online form solves several issues:
    • It reduces the number of time-consuming calls that staff must answer.
    • It provides faster customer service.
      • The submitted form goes to the office staff for their records. The form is also routed to the Superintendent in charge of the requested service, and to Unger. “I see everything that comes in on the forms, and I or a Superintendent usually respond, if needed. We can respond faster because we took out a whole segment of the chain for the request to get to the right people faster. This is one of the reasons things happen more timely now.”
    • The form provides accountability. “Now there is accountability because residents have a record of their submittal, and I can go back and search the database, if necessary,” said Unger. He said this helps him determine whether the issue is ongoing or new.
    • The form allows you to upload an image to help clarify your issue.
    • The new system helps Unger determine if an E-blast needs to go out to residents. If Unger sees a spike in requests of the same kind, he can use the information to determine if an E-blast needs to be sent out.
    • It frees up office staff to do other work that was possibly not kept up with in the past. Since the office staff is not spending as much time answering calls, they have time to do other tasks such as organizing files, digitizing materials, and other projects.
    • Residents receive a notification when their request is completed.

Using the Public Services Request Form helps the Public Services Department to give you faster service, and you have proof of your submittal. If you don’t like leaving voicemails (and most of us don’t), this is the better way of making public service requests. To make a public service request, Click here and scroll down.

By Cheryl Dowden

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR PUBLIC SERVICES DIRECTOR

Ken Unger
Director Public Services
Hot Springs Village
501-226-9609
Kunger@hsvpoa.org