With local governments feeling the pinch of an economy still in recovery, many centralized customer service systems struggle to retain appropriate staffing levels.  Answer times increase as staff available to handle calls decrease, effectively lowering customer satisfaction with local government service.  So, how to stop the downward cycle and make sure citizens’ needs are being met?

One possible answer is to tap into the talents of residents who have attended a local citizen academy.   Many local governments have established educational programs for citizens who want to be better informed and have a greater understanding of how their local government works.  Citizen academies can be found in urban area as well as smaller communities.  Residents who participate in citizen academies generally have a strong desire to make their community a better place to live.

Graduates of citizen academies represent a potential pool of talented volunteers who could be recruited to help with local government customer service in a variety ways.  While not a substitute for trained professionals, citizen volunteers can be tapped to provide short breaks for call agents by directing calls for simple information to them.  They can also be called upon to attend neighborhood association meetings in the community and process information and service request using online forms or teach their neighbors how to submit the forms themselves.

Using citizen volunteers helps create a more engaged citizenry and provides a potential source of new call agents when budgets allow.  While labor laws don’t permit the use of volunteers in many jurisdictions, the option is worth exploring in many others.