QUESTION
What strategies are being adopted to improve response times and service quality across NYC city agencies?
1:05:27
·
5 min
The Director of the Mayor's Office of Operations acknowledges the need for a new paradigm to assess response quality, rather than merely speed, and discusses the complexities of various performance issues.
- The emphasis shifts from quick responses to quality responses, with satisfaction surveys now available for assessment.
- Some agencies still meet their targets despite performance slips, while others fall short.
- Customer service metrics show both improvements and declines, with particular challenges attributed to staffing and increased demand for services.
- Economic trends and the cessation of federal aid programs have led to a surge in demand for various city services.
- A comprehensive approach rather than a single solution is suggested to address the diverse challenges faced by different agencies.
Lincoln Restler
1:05:27
And that's a perfect segue to my next question, which is that they're not responding effectively.
1:05:32
What we saw, I mean, I saw a CDC report from 2017 that said 35 of the 2000 or so indicators capture public perception.
1:05:41
Maybe all have increased it in the ensuing 7 years.
1:05:44
I hope you have.
1:05:44
But But when we looked at those indicators of how quickly we are responding, how quickly city agencies are responding to letters and calls, it's not good.
1:05:56
I mean, Disney, the department's sanitation emails and letter response times were down from just year over year, 88% to 70%.
1:06:03
Within 14 days on letters, down from 90% to 73% on emails.
1:06:07
North complain submitted to DP took an average of 5.4 days to close.
1:06:11
2 days longer than pre pandemic.
1:06:14
Cultural affairs is only responding to 27% of emails in 14 days.
1:06:18
CCRB is answering 25% of letters in 14 days.
1:06:21
CCHR is averaging weight of 10 minutes to speak with a customer service agent, up from 2 minutes.
1:06:26
TLC average time to close consumer complaints has increased by 4 days.
1:06:30
It's over a month.
1:06:32
HRA average in person wait time increased to 94 minutes.
1:06:35
And DHS, worst of all, waiting time to speak with a customer service agent increased from 77 minutes to a 113 minutes.
1:06:43
Who has time to wait 2 hours to speak to a a DHS official when you're struggling with homelessness?
1:06:49
But you then have other agencies that, you know, in the spirit of your interchange with cast member Gutierrez, who are, I think, just willfully misrepresenting their responses, such as the NYPD and DOC.
1:07:03
PD res reports responding to 99% of 3011 service requests on time but I promise you how I see how they close out the placard issues in my district in downtown Brooklyn, like they're not doing anything.
1:07:16
They could say they're closing them out, but it's disingenuous at best.
1:07:19
Or DOCs reports responding to a 100% of letters and 90% of emails on time.
1:07:24
And if that's true, I have a bridge to sell you because like I just I mean, but I dig I digress.
1:07:30
I'm broadly concerned that what we're seeing at 311 with the slower response times, we're also seeing across the border city agencies.
1:07:37
Ultimately, I think this is the result of 7 rounds of budget cuts and multiple hiring freezes.
1:07:43
But for a mayor that claims that he wants to be the most accessible and the most responsive, This data tells a really different story, and it's really troubling.
1:07:51
So, you know, the what are we doing across the board on this?
1:07:55
I remember the chief efficiency officer had created like a customer service role.
1:07:59
I don't know if that's a real thing.
1:08:01
I don't know what the chief efficiency officer does.
1:08:04
But what global approach is being taken.
1:08:07
You're seeing these trends across lots of agencies in the PMMR.
1:08:11
How are we how can we do better to make sure we're engaging and responding to the complaints concerns that New Yorkers raised?
Dan Steinberg
1:08:18
I I wanna answer in a few ways.
1:08:19
First of all, I think we're making the same point, but it's a very important point that a fast response does not always meet a quality response.
1:08:26
And and for too long, the cities assessed its own performance by how fast it responded.
1:08:30
And and that was a completely flawed framework.
1:08:33
And now we have the date available through through the satisfaction surveys to to, you know, and what you will see invariably are often the responses that that get closed out, the fastest are the least popular in terms of satisfaction.
1:08:46
And so it we need a new paradigm for assessing ourselves and We finally have the data.
1:08:52
For that, I I think you raised a lot of legitimate performance issues in that list.
1:08:59
Some of them still met their target.
1:09:01
That's always an important qualification.
1:09:03
So something could slip and not necessarily be off track.
1:09:06
But some of those didn't meet their targets.
1:09:09
And and there are a lot of customer service indicators that have improved too.
1:09:12
But, you know, in terms of call times, wait times, and and letters and emails responded to, which by the way had been told for obsolete indicators for a very long time until they started performing poorly.
1:09:25
But but you so so I think that A lot of them, you know, we explained pretty clearly in the report which ones are related to staffing and which ones are related to demand.
1:09:38
You know, and or some combination to the extent, you know, demand for benefits in general right now is you know, completely through the roof, it corresponds with the end of a lot of federal aid programs and and and economic trends And so there has been some kind of objective, you know, increases in demand for for different types of services.
1:10:00
So I I think I can't answer in in 2 brushstroke ascents because each situation is different, and there are some legitimate highlights in terms of agencies really addressing customer service issues, but but I think these are great questions for those agencies.
Lincoln Restler
1:10:16
I I I appreciate that and and in some ways this hearing the Friday before the Monday of our budget our preliminary budget hearing is a good segue and overview for that in that process over the next month.
1:10:28
But I do think that this does this requires a more global response from city hall about how they're engaging and encouraging agencies.
1:10:37
To respond to to complaints and concerns that they hear from New Yorkers.
1:10:40
If I responded to 25% of constituent incoming in 2 weeks, Like, we wouldn't be here.
1:10:47
And if I closed out every complaint the way NYPD does without doing anything to help on those placard issues, I wouldn't be here.
1:10:54
So I just mean to say that I think there are some serious issues in this data, and I appreciate you advocating for their inclusion here.