Accenture Helps New York City Develop and Launch 311 Citizen Service Center

NEW YORK; May 13, 2003 – New York City residents now have easy, around-the-clock access to municipal services by dialing 311 to reach the new Citizen Service Center, which was designed, built and deployed through a joint collaboration between the City and Accenture (NYSE: ACN). 311 is the new all-purpose three digit telephone number designed to give New York City residents 24/7 access to non-emergency municipal services and information. Working closely with the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication (DOITT), Accenture led the development of this complex systems integration project, the size and scope of which are unprecedented among 311 programs across the country.

The 311 service is designed to make it faster and easier for residents to contact a specific City department or hotline. Under the new “one-stop” service delivery model, residents can simply dial 311 on their telephones and be connected to a citizen service representative. The Citizen Service Center can assist callers with a wide range of city services and information requests in a total of 170 different languages so that today New Yorkers only need to know two numbers for City government – 911 for emergency services and 311 for everything else. Callers from outside the five City boroughs may also access 311 services by dialing 212-NEW-YORK.

“Accenture was an integral partner in driving the successful launch of the 311 program,” said Gino Menchini, commissioner of DOITT and Chief Information Officer of New York City. “Armed with a unique understanding of the City’s technology infrastructure, Accenture was able to quickly and deftly assemble all the moving parts of a complicated new system – which included introducing many new processes, applications and technologies – and make them work together seamlessly. As a result, we now have access to new data that enables us to make better management decisions and allocate our resources more efficiently, which translates into cost savings to the City.”

The initial launch of the 311 Citizen Service Center was achieved just seven months after the contract award and included the deployment of new operational processes, a call center facility, customer contact software applications, a knowledge base covering more than 6,000 aspects of City government services, and a roll-out to more than 100 New York Police Department precincts to help resolve quality-of-life complaints. The 311 Citizen Service Center is built on a customer relationship management foundation that New York City will use for service delivery tracking for the next decade.

The 311 program was developed to help the City improve customer service and promote its “open government” manifesto while also creating the means to manage the delivery of City services more effectively. The new service is intended to provide users with faster problem resolution, easier access to knowledgeable help, better self-service options and more-personalized service. Over time, it will help enable the City to track and manage the end-to-end response to service requests and identify “trouble spots” through geographic mapping of data.

“The new 311 program has vaulted New York City into the forefront of improving citizen access to their government,” said David Moskovitz, a partner in Accenture’s Government practice. “No other 311 program comes close in terms of the breadth of services and information that is now accessible anytime of the day or night. We look forward to completing the transformation by integrating 311 services with the City’s web site so that similar citizen services can be accessed through either a telephone or computer.”

In responding to 311 calls, the Citizen Service Center offers a variety of services including:

• providing directory assistance information about local government phone numbers, addresses or office hours;
• fulfilling information requests about specific processes or to acquire information or publications;
• accommodating requests for a broad range of services such as fixing potholes and broken street lights, acquiring a birth certificate, or arranging for sanitation pick-up;
• reporting “quality of life” issues or complaints with the New York Police Department; and
• leaving a message for Mayor Bloomberg.

“New York City’s decision reflects a national trend of cities and counties that view 311 service as an enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) initiative,” added Craig Cornelius, lead CRM partner for Accenture’s USA Government practice. “Local governments are turning to companies with deep CRM experience to help them apply CRM techniques and practices to transform the way they deliver services to citizens and businesses.”

The next phases of 311 Citizen Service Center will break new ground in the management of government services. The City’s Web site (www.nyc.gov) will be enhanced to provide parallel self-service capabilities that will be integrated with the 311 Citizen Service Center. Further deployment of the system to agencies are also intended to enable full life cycle management of citizen service requests and enhanced measurement and reporting of service delivery performance.

Accenture led a team of subcontractors on the 311 Citizen Service program that included Sun Microsystems, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., Siebel Systems, Inc., iXP Corp, Motorola, Cisco, Nortel, Verizon, Information Methods Inc. (IMI), Winbourne & Costas, SDG Corp., Interwoven and Oracle.

About Accenture
Accenture is the world’s leading management consulting and technology services company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them realize their visions and create tangible value. With deep industry expertise, broad global resources and proven experience in consulting and outsourcing, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills, alliances and technologies. With more than 75,000 people in 47 countries, the company generated net revenues of $11.6 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2002. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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