Customer service departments used to be the domain of private businesses to address the needs of their clientele, but now virtually every organization has some form of outlet to engage their customers and resolve any issues they might have with the products and services they offer. Cities around the country, and indeed the world, have been implementing call centers to provide residents with the latest information regarding local, state or national government information. The Township of Princeton New Jersey has opened Access Princeton, a call center designed to simplify the way residents interact with their government.
Access Princeton will be open Monday to Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. so residents can report non-emergency incidents or ask questions. According to the Mayor, Liz Lempert, making sense of all the agencies within the Township can be complicated, especially since it consolidated with Princeton Borough last year. By calling this one number, residents will be routed to the right person or even have the issue resolved right then and there.
In addition to the call center, the town has also formed partnership with SeeClickFix, a Web tool that allows residents to report non-emergency neighborhood issues, which is then relayed to the right organization within the town. Everything from downed trees, broken streetlights, and missed trash pickups to unsafe buildings can be reported.
If an individual wants to follow the progress of the incidents they reported, they can follow it online to see how it has been carried out and who is handling this particular issue; providing a level of transparency within the municipality that is sorely lacking in higher levels of government.
The Access Princeton app is also in the works and will be available from the Apple App Store for the IPhone or the Google Play Store for Android devices in the very near future.
Officially the center is slated for a grand opening in September, but there was a soft launch last week.