Kvetching on 311: What New Yorkers Complain About
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Interesting graphic at Wired, about one of the innovations of the Bloomberg administration: 311. Originally conceived of as a way to eliminate non emergency calls to 911, it has turned out to be a giant success, fielding its 100 millionth call recently.
Here’s Wired:
“Launched in March 2003, 311 now fields on average more than 50,000 calls a day, offering information about more than 3,600 topics: school closings, recycling rules, homeless shelters, park events, pothole repairs. The service has translators on call to handle some 180 different languages. City officials tout a 2008 customer satisfaction survey, conducted by an outside firm, that compared 311’s popularity to other call centers in both the public and private sectors. 311 finished first, barely edging out hotel and retail performance but beating other government call centers, like the IRS’s, by a mile. (At the very bottom of the list, not surprisingly: cable companies.) Executive director Joseph Morrisroe attributes 311’s stellar scores to its advanced technology, relentless focus on metrics, and employee training, which ensures that “customers will speak with a polite, professional, and knowledgeable New Yorker when they need assistance.”
If anyone still wondered whether the 311 concept was here to stay, New York’s 100 millionth call should have dispelled all doubts. So, for that matter, should the other 300-plus public call centers now in operation across the US. For millions of Americans, dialing 311 has become almost as automatic as 411 or 911. But—as New York learned in the maple syrup incident—the hundreds of millions of calls also represent a huge pool of data to be collected, parsed, and transformed into usable intelligence. Perhaps even more exciting is the new ecosystem of startups, inspired by New York’s success and empowered by 21st-century technology, that has emerged to create innovative ways for residents to document their problems. All this meticulous urban analysis points the way toward a larger, and potentially revolutionary, development: the city built of data, the crowdsourced metropolis.”
I called in a 311 complaint last year when the traffic light on 3rd Avenue and 42nd street was out — the operator told me they just received 4 other calls, and had referred the incident to Traffic Control, who were were dispatching a repair truck. As a lifelong New Yorker, it was quite a surprising experience . . .
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Source:
What a Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York
Steven Johnson
Wired November 2010
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/ff_311_new_york/all/1
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November 9th, 2010 at 7:05 am
As I always said growing up there, New York’s a great place between 6 and 7am! :~)
November 9th, 2010 at 7:10 am
Wow BR – pretty graph! It looks like taffy (giggling like a kid)!
Can anyone verify this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/atm-cash-shortage-coming
November 9th, 2010 at 7:27 am
Midtown Tunnel bliss?
November 9th, 2010 at 7:34 am
Good and effective government can exist and work to the benefit of the average citizen (emphasis, of course is on “can”).
November 9th, 2010 at 7:57 am
What was that recently, about jobs? Is it all disinformation and propaganda now?
http://www.counterpunch.org/
November 9th, 2010 at 8:06 am
QE isn’t on the list? :-)
November 9th, 2010 at 8:30 am
OT, a name from the past – AMBAC files for Chap 11. Who’s next? A warning for mortgage insurers?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Ambac-files-for-bankruptcy-apf-1896775936.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=
November 9th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Ireland heading to BK because of gov guarantees to their 3 biggest banks, maybe a message for the US. Investors backing away from other PIIG bonds, maybe one more small domino Portugal after Ireland then the middleweights Spain & Italy.
According to Grant the old sod only has enough cash for 60 days.
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/64352822/
November 9th, 2010 at 9:09 am
The only time I ever called 311 was for the noise at 3 a.m. on the weekdays when the club traffic would start to back-up in gridlock down by the meatpacking district and the club kids would lay on their horns for hours. I would often point out that the police could have made some nice coin ticketing these folks. Thank God I’m out of that place. Fun as a young and/or VERY rich person, but that’s about it. Still fun to visit though.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:19 am
So much for the “government can’t do anything right” mantra.
November 9th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Nice chart. But look at the two highest complaints, noise at night (OK I buy that one), and streetlights between 11 Am and 1 PM. It’s during the day. The lights are on, sunlight.
Are New Yorkers just whiners and winos?
Grow up!
November 9th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Marcus:
I presume its that goofing off at work and complaining about the light by your house. Though the line may be open the office you have to complain to my be closed. Realize that a lot of 311 call are just routing you to the right office, if it’s closed at night you make a note to call in the morning.
November 9th, 2010 at 11:25 am
BR: “As a lifelong New Yorker”
People who live on the Island are not “lifelong” New Yorkers. But yes, unless my ears deceive me, a “native” New Yorker.
November 9th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
This New Yorker is worried about people trying to kill him….
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/nyregion/09fraud.html?_r=2
November 9th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I thought the point of 311 was to allow citizens to report non-emergency, quality-of-life affecting problems so they could be addressed and rectified. An increasing number of 311 calls would appear to make the program a failure since the problems being reported are NOT being rectified.
The goal of 311 should be to put itself out of business.