Customer service strategy update and CAO evaluation

All right. Thank you. And welcome to our city council meeting. It is December the 12th, 2023. It is Tuesday. It's just 345, I think. Or so. P. M. And I'll call this meeting to order. As I said, we are looking right off the top to move into closed session on a few items before I do that. Does anyone have any disclosure of pecuniary interest or any general nature thereof for the items in front of us. Hearing and seeing none. I did get official regrets from Clawson and from alt. Just so everyone is aware of those two. And. It looks like. Here's the titles on our agenda. Confirmation. I'm sorry. Claire Maltpee, secondary Plan, Ontario Land Tribunal update, section 2392. ENF litigation or potential litigation, including matters before administrative tribunals affecting the municipality or local board. And advice that is subject to solicitor client privilege, including communications necessary for that. Purpose. Second is Chief Administrative Officer, subcommittee performance Evaluation for 2023, section 2392 B and D

of the Municipal act related to personal matters about unidentifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees and labor relations or employee negotiations. And number three, the procedure by law, training and clarity. Section two, three, nine, 3.1 of the municipal act. A meeting is held for the purpose of educating and or training the members. With those in front of us. Would someone be willing to move a motion to move in councilor? Galler is doing that for me. Seconded by anybody. Richardson will do that for me. Is anyone against? That's nobody. That's unanimous. Thank you. I will join in closed session for these. Items. And when I come back out, I'll do a high level summary. Thank you.

All right. Hello, everybody, and I'm just going to call us back to order here in the open session just to close off the closed meeting summary. So we went in on three items. The Claire Malti secondary Plan. Ontario Land Tribunal update. Council had a discussion about that. And we did give direction to staff on that matter. Because although. The second one in a second. We had discussion around the procedural bylaw training and clarity. And there was no direction on that at all. It was just information received. And then on the last one of going in camera was chief administrative officer subcommittee performance evaluation for 2023. And I'm going to go to councilor Richardson. Please to bring forward a motion that's coming out of the closed session that we're going to have in the open session now. Thank you. And through you, Mayor, I will move this motion and seconded by councilor Galler. That the 2023 Chief. Administrative officer performance evaluation as described and outlined in the closed council report dated Tuesday, December 12, 2023 be

approved. Great. Thank you. Is there anything else on that council? Don't hear or see any, so I'll call the vote on that. Is anyone against that approval. And that's unanimous. Thank you so much. And again, I also say this out loud. Thank you to you, Cao Stewart, for your leadership over this last year. It's much appreciated. On behalf of council. You're doing a great job, so thank you very much. Even with that outfit on, We appreciate you. Thank you very much. With that. We have about. A three to four minute break before 05:00 hits, and then we will start officially the open session of council in front of us, so just bear with us for three or four minutes. Okay. Thank you.

32nd warning, everybody.

All right, everybody, call the meeting to order in the open session here. Thank you so much for joining us is December the 12th, 2023, right around 05:00. And to kick things off, if you could stand, if you're able, for our national anthem.

Great. Thank you. And just to continue, just join with me for a moment of silent reflection before. We move on.

Great. Thank you. And now for our indigenous territorial acknowledgment as we gather. Let us take time to reflect on our privilege to live and work here in Guelph. It's a city that's built over rich indigenous histories. Where guests here we should reflect upon the responsibility to care for the land and the people who live here today and the generations to come. For actions today can move us towards reconciliation. We should take pause and make those decisions with intention. And gratitude. This place we call Guelph has served as traditional lands and a place of refuge for. Many peoples over time, but more specifically, The Anawadrock and the Hodon Ashony. This land is held as the treaty lands. And territory with the Mississaugas of the credit First Nation and Guelph lies. Directly adjacent to the Haldeman track and is part of a long established traditional hunting grounds. For the six nations of the Grand river. Many first nations. Inuet mat. Mati peoples who have come from a cross turtle island call Guelph home today. So thank you. And is there any disclosure of pecaniary interest or any general nature thereof? For the items in front of us

here. Seeing and hearing none. Will move right along. My favorite part of the meeting. Special recognitions, and we have a few today. And I know council is looking forward to this. I'm sure the public is as well. So I just want to just take a moment now at this time to recognize some amazing. Gwel fights and. The first I'd like to recognize. Is the wonderful Marvel wisdom. And yes. Maybe you didn't know, but her first name is really the wonderful. I added that the wonderful marvel wisdom. And boy. She has received the 2022 Order of Ontario. The Order of Ontario recognizes exceptional leaders. From all walks of life, diverse fields whose impact and legacy have played an important role in building. A stronger province, country and the world. And I would add the city as well. Many of you will likely know Marva, a fellow

Guelphite and leader within our community. Marva played a key role. As a community advisor, helping us develop Guelph's community plan. A real key role. A senior fellow at the Monk School of Global affairs and public policy at the University of Toronto. A fellow of. Am I saying that right? Thank you. Institute and former director of the Black Experience Project. Marva has helped transform the black experience here in Ontario. Her leadership has provided insights into enhancing diversity, inclusion and belonging across our entire society. So congratulations to Marva. Another huge round of applause. And I'll be down in a minute to see you, but I got one more group. Of people here to recognize. And so right now, I like to recognize the team members and the mentors from Team 26. Nine the Beaver works from the Art lady of Lured's robotics team, who won both the

2023 1st Robotics World champion Alliance and the 2023 1st robotics hopper Div. Division champion alliance in Houston earlier this year. They are the only canadian team to reach the finals, and they're right from. Well, isn't. That amazing? Yes. So, congratulations. To all those team members and mentors, and it gives me great honor on behalf of council. And on behalf of the city, to swing on down there and to hand out the city medals. To each of you, so I'll do that now.

All right, thank you, everyone. So let's keep moving along here. We have the next thing on the list here is. Our confirmation of the open minutes. It's the meetings held November 6, 7th, 15th, 21st, 28 and 29th, and the committee of the whole meeting, held November 6, to be confirmed as recorded and without being read. Would someone be willing to move that for me? Richardson and Kate will second that. Anything further on the minutes? Nothing. Okay, I'll call the vote. Anyone against the minutes? No one. That's unanimous. Thank you very much. And we are going to kick us off. With presentation. From both steven o'brien and stacey hare. This is under the title implementing service simplified. Guel's customer service strategy. And we're looking forward to not only seeing the presentation here, but the recommendation is just to receive just as a heads up for everybody. But let's get into the presentation. Go. Right ahead. Thank you, Mary Guthrie. And thank you, council, for having us

as the general manager of the city clerk's office, which includes the team at service wealth and the customer service and experience team. I'm pleased to be back before you again. You recall we were here last year with. You around the same time to give you an update on a progress report regarding the implementation of Guelph's customer service strategy, which is called service simplified as you're well. Aware. Just as a reminder, the strategy was approved in 2018. We did pause it because at the time. There was some competing priorities from a budget standpoint. But we restarted that work in 2022. Heading into 2024, we again find ourselves adjusting some plans. To transform the city's customer service model and approach over the next few years. But again, Despite the work that's been done on budget and despite some of the discussions that council has had in that regard. There are things we can and must do now to set ourselves up. For a successful transition to a more centralized, onestop shop approach to customer service delivery. And we're here to absolutely tell you about that. Yes. Sorry to interrupt you, Steven. I just wanted to. Our robotics team. If you want to stay, that's awesome. Can learn all about customer service. Happening here at the city of Guelph. But if you also want to leave now, would be the good time, just so you don't feel caught

sort of waiting. So I just. Wanted to make sure that you were okay. I could see people not understanding if these should stay or go. Steven's upset because he had an audience. I was excited, Mr. Mayor. Okay. So. Let's just wait 20 seconds, okay? Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right, awesome. Thank you. I just wanted to kind of help that out. There a little bit. Sorry. Steven, go ahead. Yes. Understandable. Thank you. On the slide before you've. Seen this diagram before and you'll note the progress that we've made. Since last year. It shows where we are on the journey towards a more citizen centered service, including the shift towards. A central customer contact center. Before we move to digital and pushing things digital today, we'll share the progress we've made and the work that lies ahead as we continue becoming a more citizen centered, performance driven and digitally enabled organization. Here's a quick recap on this next slide of 2022 we established and you'll probably recall this. I'll move through it quickly we establish Guelph's. Good service standards, which was a very important and sort of foundational aspect of what we did, and we also stood up employee training to support a more consistent customer experience across all the city's service areas. We added more services to Guel's digital report. A problem ma. Map. What we're really proud of as we've completed two lean, continuous improvement projects to standardize how we measure and report customer satisfaction data and also started offering more services in again that central Customer contact center that we talked about, and we did that without increasing staff

in 2023. This year, our focus on service standards became part of our annual. Performance evaluation program. So we've now embedded it in the discussions that staff have with their leaders, and it's a focal point of performance evaluation. More departments are using a standard. Standardized approach story to measure customer satisfaction, we're adding new digital services through a property tax portal that we'll be launching, hopefully very early in the new year. We've centralized more customer service activities, reduced duplication and process waste. And with that, I'm going to hand it off to Stacey Hare, our program manager of customer service, who's going to highlight. Our accomplishments in each of the four years. Do you want me to do that? Sure. Okay, thanks. Hello, everyone, and thank you. Yes. So that first area. Is encouraging a more service focused culture. Hundreds more employees completed customer service training in 2023 and wells good service standards are now reflected in the city's annual employee performance evaluations. We're working to keep service in the spotlight by sharing service success stories and recognizing our teammates. Some of who you see on the screen.

There. Our service teams are super excited. We're taking the time to listen to their stories. And their struggles so we can review and improve the processes and tools they use every single day. I'd like to note here that our citywide satisfaction survey and departmental customer satisfaction surveys. Consistently show that most people are. Mostly happy with most services most of the time, and that's not because we have the very best training program or the very best systems, tools or technology. City services only work as well as they do because of the people. Like the ones you see here. Speaking of customer satisfaction, I need water. Just one moment. Thank you. Speaking of customer satisfaction, we're collecting that satisfaction data more consistently and regularly now. Too regularly. Measuring and reporting this kind of data is another way to build it into our culture and become a more service focused organization. The

city's preferring for a citywide satisfaction survey this spring to gather feedback from a representative sample of our community, and that city's wide satisfaction survey will include assessment service assessment and gap analysis. More specifically, I'm looking at you, councilor or warg, we will be asking. About people satisfaction with specific city services. And we'll use that data alongside operational performance measures to get a more complete understanding of the city's overall performance. We look forward to sharing those findings as part of the city's performance reporting in June, and we're inviting local boards and shared services to share their data during that same meeting. And now let's talk about the city's transition to a central customer contact center. I know there's a lot of copy on the slides, but I'll try to. Summarize it quickly. Our goal is dead simple, to make it easier for people to get the city's most popular services using one phone number, one email.

And sell options online. Our customer service team will work from several locations, resolving 50% to 60% of customer inquiries. During that first interaction. We're working to reduce misdirected calls, reduce wait times and reduce duplication. Among city departments, and we're working with one department at a time or working in waves. And I'll explain that on the next slide. We're applying. Lean, continuous improvement methodologies in each wave with each team. And you'll notice what I haven't said yet is anything about a new website or digital services or CRM and that's because new technology is not the goal. Improving services is our goal. And before we can improve something, we need to understand it. Shifting to a more centralized approach to customer service is a monumental, multi year, organization wide change. So we're breaking it into departmental phases, or waves, because each department designs and delivers. Services differently and separately. There are things that only they know. So we start by listening and writing down what they do and how they do it, and we're learning a lot

about each other in the process. Departmental service teams may or may not be measuring call volumes, resolution times or service standards. We may or may not have documented or standardized processes or scripts for resolving or escalating customer inquiries. And many of our customer service staff also have all kinds of other parts of their job, like administrative work, payroll. And scheduling, and there's a lot to define and detangle before moving customer service. Functions into a central customer contact center when we move. Service activities without understanding how they work. We end up causing problems in other processes, in other parts. Of the organization. So in each wave you'll see on the screen. We're very deliberate about analyzing the current state, and that means making a list of services. Documenting how they're delivered. Right now we're viewing sops and scripts and all. That good stuff about call volumes, resolution times. And if we can't find it easily, we have to make it and go get it. Then we want to design the future state. Once we've identified where we've got process waste. We want to remove that waste to reduce the duplication, reduce the misdirected. Calls and design

systems that may or may not currently exist. We'll script out things we don't currently have and make sure people know where to find the information they need to resolve more calls more regularly and escalate the calls. That they may not have the answers to most readily.

Bombing system. Training is absolutely critical, as this means. This means change for most employees. They're going to be doing less of one thing, more of another kind of thing. And so training and tools is absolutely essential before we go live. And then, of course, we'll measure and report and that. Measurement is focused on outcomes for customers as well as outcomes for our service staff. Making sure. We've eliminated those pain points, and we've got benefits for the customer as well. As the folks delivering services on both sides of the counter. Next slide, please. Like I said, we're learning a lot about each other as we go through the process. And here's a slide depicting some of the things we learned. On the left, you can see the phone tree or the phone menu. Before we started working with the tax team. You don't need to read the actual words on this slide. It's. Just a visual to show the complexity that was in that phone tree before we started working. With our friends in tax. You would call the tax line and you would get a recorded message. Asking you to press one. Press 2345 or six. And if you pressed one or two, you would get another message asking you to choose from another. Five

things on another menu. And then you can see the squiggly lines and the arrows. We've got the same items listed on multiple menus. And that's messy. It's too many. So now when you call the tax line, or service wealth. You get four options. And most of those calls are now resolved by service Guelph. During the first interaction. And that's depicted on the right of the slide. So after wave one, working with our friends and property tax and service wealth, we've moved nine out of 13 tax services. From the second floor to the first floor into that central contact center. And that means we've. Experienced a 100% increase in call volumes at service. Guelph. We needed to hire. Two more agents to manage that increased call volume. Those two agents are funded using reserves that are addressed by internal efficiencies. And now service. Guelph is resolving 64% of calls about property taxes during the first interaction and the folks on the second floor in the tax office can apply their expertise to more complex inquiries. And projects as the city continues to grow. And speaking of projects in the tax department, the city is very excited

about launching a new property tax portal online. These are new self serve options will be available. In mid January, and people will be able to log into the city's portal two sign up for e billing, view and print their bills and statements and sign up or change or make any changes to their pre authorized payment plans. Now, that means we expect customer calls and emails to go up for the first year or so as people get used to. Using these new tools as they learn to log in, set up their accounts, forget their passwords, all that good stuff once they're up and running with the new system. Ultimately, we'll see a few spikes as each tax bill goes out, but ultimately the number of calls and emails will go down. Eventually. The calls and emails decline as people get used to doing the basics themselves. And again, that frees up employee capacity to manage more complex inquiries. As the city continues to grow. Steven is going to talk to you about parking. Thanks, Stacy. An employee vacancy in parking department presented an opportunity for us to take a look at that department. A little bit earlier than we would have. Normal. We've sort of staged

all these departments. Out over a period of time, but we're being nimble and agile in that regard. And so we were able to use that opportunity to consider service efficiencies in that department as well, and parking was tracking call volumes and had docum. Documented services processes which allowed us to sort of hit the ground running when we engage with parking. We learned that 60% of customer calls and emails to parking were actually being redirected. To other departments, bylaw, traffic courts, et cetera. And so what that means is that calls going to traffic and bylaw. We're also being directed potentially to parking. We've eliminated some of that duplication and we're now managing more of the calls related to parking from service wealth. We replaced the parking phone number and email on the city's website and the cities and we replaced it with the city's main phone number. So again, this is indicative of us. Moving towards that one call, one number to use. We've reduced customer transfers without increasing staff. In service wealth. When it came to this second wave of the parking team, employee vacancy was reallocated. To. Increased service levels in event parking and actually in the adult crossing guard program. So again, Repurposing the availability of staff resources. Our first two waves with

tax and parking taught us some valuable lessons. And those lessons we will apply as we continue reviewing and improving service processes throughout the organization. Cleaning up our service processes now ensures that we make the most of the future investments in technology, like a CRM, so it's very indicative of us taking the time to map these processes out before. We digitize. Speaking of technology, here's a look at some of the service related technology investments that you've discussed as part of the 2024 2027 multi year budget. As noted earlier, we have a new tax portal coming online early in the new year and. We're working to update the city's work order management system as well, which is. A very foundational program. And solution that a lot of staff use throughout our organization. In 2024, our focus will be on a new corporate payment system. And redesigning Guelph, Ca. Both are needed to support modern customer service delivery. So those two items are also coming. Our plan investment in CRM, which will support more digital self serve options. Was deferred from 24 to 25 as part of the discussions through budget. And we will be working on a new water utility billing system as well. There's been a lot of progress, and there's still a lot of work

ahead. Stacy. Home stretch. On the screen again. I know it's very text heavy. It is an attachment included with the report. This is an updated version of the service simplified summary that we shared with you in June. The items in green are complete and those in yellow are underway. Those in gray were either deferred or removed from the prop. Proposed 24 to 27 multi year budget. So working from left to right, we've got our standards in place now, and that's a big part of that customer centric or service. Centric culture. Customer satisfaction measurement and reporting is another fundamental part of that organizational culture change. And then the third arrow sets out some governance. And policies and procedures that we need internally for more collaborative and communicative decision making about customer and digital services. And then the last pillar is about the contact center and digital services. So next year. As Steven mentioned, we're adjusting our plans based on. Changes in the budget, you may not see as many service

activities moving into service. Guelph as we adjust our implementation and apply our existing resources to the priorities that we've talked about today, educating and engaging our employees building a more customer centric culture, measuring and reporting customer satisfaction and developing governance training and tool. Tools to support each department in the transition to a central customer contact center. And we shared this image at the end of last year's presentation as well. I think it says a lot. And there may be some quick wins along the way like that. Vacancy in the parking, but there are no shortcuts. Lastly, I want to thank the people. And teams in tax, parking and service wealth for stepping up and doing the hard work it takes. To make service simplified. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. To council. Maybe just before any questions with someone willing to move, receipt of Gauler will do that. And Katen again will second that for us. So, any follow up questions? I'll start with busatill and then Kate. Through the mayor. Thank you very much for the presentation. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Might be in

the weeds. Questions. As someone who volunteers to do taxes for the world, There's the process of the tax statements, which excites me because it's tied to the Ontario trillium benefit for families and so on. And there's always difficulty in accessing previous years so you can go back ten years. So my question is. Would you consider or look at access? To tax statements going back ten years because you can do that for your tax filings. And. What has been the practice so far is you have to pay for it, and then the municipality mails it or email it to individuals, so just you don't have to respond to that, but I got excited thinking. People can get it right away. The second question that I had was around your service consolidation, and I guess the way that I read the documents is that. This is the city's end of the service consolidation at the city operations. Has there been consideration. Or conversations around user consolidation, and I'm going to put my hand up. I've got reckon roll? I've got passwords. For. 25 different things. And I

have a book because I can never remember what is what and what. I'm doing. And so. Is there from the end user at some point. I just put in my login. I have a menu, whether it's building all these. Kinds of things, and those are my comment to my question. Yes. And through you, I cannot answer either one of those questions, but I know people who can. I will definitely consult with the tax team. About tax certificates versus tax statements and easy access. You can print them from the new portal. I don't know how far back they go, so let me check. And as far as single. Sign on digital identity? That is an interesting question, and I'm not sure about the latest information I have from it, so I can get back to you on that one as well. Thank you, I might just. A supplemental. Yes. Stephen just wants to. Oh, does he? Sorry. I would just add in and thank you, Mayor Guthrie, through you to councilor busintill. Stacy is right. We do need to sort of get a full sense of all of those logins but at the end of the day, An outcome that we foresee of a CRM tool, a customer relationship management tool, is to have a more end to end, one stop shop. So regardless of the

service, or ideally as many services as permissible would be, would sort of live within that CRM, and that would allow. Users to log into some form of a tool that would allow them to access multiple services. Single logon on and that type of thing. Again, there's a lot to get there to. The point that we made through the presentation. We're working with departments to review their processes, make sure that things are in order. Centralize those services, and then we will digitize services from that sense, right? Get those processes. And centralization of services in place and then move subsequently from there to digitization through a tool like a CRM. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. Caitlin and her work. Thank you. Through you to Stacy. I was just wondering for some of our current. Existing tools like the map. I saw that the map had less satisfaction than some of. Our other services, and I was just wondering. Is there a process in place for folks who are having issues with the map, whether they be technical or potentially like a human. Process issue

on that end to have those resolved. What is the best path for them when they run into a problem. Thank you. And through you, Mayor Guthrie. Yes, there is a process, and the process is to call service, Guelph, and they will help you through any other kinds of service requests. I also took a little bit of look through some of the data, so it may not be a map. Problem so much as a process problem, but I want to do some more analysis. And bring that to you in June. With a more robust explanation. Because I think there's something else going on. And again, the data can only tell you. So much until you go out and talk to people about how things are being resolved. But it's not necessarily a map problem. I think there's a people problem under there. Yeah. It's a separate issue, but thank you very much. I'll have folks start to contact. Sort of. Well, from now on. Great. Thank you, Councilor Caitlin. And last here I have is o'Rourke. Thank you. Mary Gustrie, through you to our staff. I'm curious about some things, so. Bit in the weeds, but it's more curiosity. I'm wondering, how do you prioritize what

is next? So is it a department? That has a lot of services that could be digitized. Is it? A couple. But there would be, like, a big efficiency gain. How are you deciding what? Happens next. Through. Yamir Guthrie does an awesome question, and we are still developing the framework through which. We make those kinds of decisions. That's part of the governance in their customer service. Customer digital service committee. So lots of folks around the organization. Want to make improvements to services. So which ones do we do first? Starting with the folks who are most ready. If you've already got the data in your pocket and you already have documented service processes and you have an accurate picture of how you're currently delivering services. Those are easier folks to work with than perhaps some folks who aren't tracking that data. So. That would be something in your favor, but. If your service only applies to, say, a few people. We may look at something that has a bigger benefit to more people more often. So there's a balancing act and criteria that we need to develop in order to make those kinds of decisions about. What do we apply our limited resources to first? So that work is underway. May I jump in? Mayor Guthrie, thank

you. And through you to councilor, the other piece that we do look at so. Absolutely. The processes and documentation that teams have in place helps us to Stacy's point slot, folks. In the other piece we have to look at. They've all got busy schedules. They've. Got busy times of the year. Some departments. I'll give you an example. We're. Working with parks right now. We need to make sure that we're working with them early. We've started already. Finished that work early in the new year because you can imagine. They get very busy come the springtime hiring. And their work ramps up for that team as they approach spring. So it's a combination. Of everything that Stacy said. It's sometimes just finding the right opportunity for a team that fits with them, and sometimes it's also us being available. To receive again, these sort of ad hocs that come forward. Like the team in parking, right? A vacancy was a natural vacancy occurred, and we took the opportunity to work with them to support that transition for them. So it's a multitude of factors that sort of. Sets the gantt chart out, so to speak. Thanks. Yeah, I was thinking about the Gantt chart. Three omega three two staff. Two more questions. I'm thinking when you are establishing the processes and the metrics are we looking at

what the KPIs are for that area as well, so that one supports the other because sometimes we have objectives, but. You have to figure out at the end of the day what it is you want to measure. You can't just sort of go, oh, shoot, we didn't measure that. So my very inelegant question is, how do you link that then to the broader KPIs to be able to provide a big picture at deficiencies. Thank you. And through you, Mayor Gothri. They do need to be aligned, and you do need both sets of data to understand. Different kinds of performance, so customer satisfaction is one piece of the puzzle. While operational, KPIs might be another. So it may not be as clean as just packaging it only to one beautiful KPI here's. The before picture. Here's the after. It might be a few data sets that we need to draw insights from to present. Like, here's the story of what's going on there. And ultimately, yes, customer satisfaction is just one measure. An operational KPIs are also important, so we need to consider them both in context of one another. I hope that answers your question and my last question, Mary Guthrie, is. CRM has been

sort of pushed out a couple of times. Right. And a lot of counselors were eager to be able to know when we'll get this is several years ago. When do we get to a process where if constituent sends in an email because sometimes we hate to get them, but sometimes we get them. I sent in an email. Or I left a voicemail and I never heard back. Right. And it could be they have. An old number and the person's no longer there or. Whatever the reason. Maybe. What's the ETA? And it can be far out. What's the ETA? Before we can say to somebody, we received your concern this date. It was received by this person, it was actioned on this person and it's resolved. When do we see a process like that? Thank you. And through you, Mayor Guthrie to councilor or work. There are pockets of that already. So I want to make sure that I don't get in trouble from the people who are already doing that really well. It's just not consistent around the organization so corporately. The one place the dashboard where we can go in and check on. Any service request that we've received would be after implementing the

CRM, so we're looking. 2027. Now, with the purchase in 2025, implementation over the next couple of years, Sorry. Mary got through. Just for you. One last one. I just want to confirm the reason you're doing all the back end stuff is so. That if people kind of flooded an app with a request of some kind, that the response in the back end is what they expect, right? That's why you are aligning things in the back end rather than starting with the interface, is that correct? Yes. So the CRM sits on top of a bunch of things so that we've got one consolidated or fewer consolidated payment platforms so we don't have different service teams scrambling. All round trying to do payments inconsistently in different places. Also, when we get a service request. We have to actually issue a work order. And all of those work orders are managed, likely differently. And separately right now. So we have to work sort of bottom up or inside out from that. Perspective to make sure that when we get a request, we know where it goes, we know how. It's handled. We know it's resolved. And right now there's just several. Different, separate systems where you can probably

go. And find that information. Some of the time we want to pull it all together in one place. So that's why we're looking at all the underlying systems first, because if you stack a CRM on top of it, all of that stuff stays broken, and you're still going to end up chasing things around and doing things manually, as opposed to. That nice contained system that's got all the information you can just pull up someone's? Record or pull up someone's request really easily. That's terrific. Thanks. And that's also through your mayor Guthrie. That's to you, Councilor O'Rourke. That's exactly as Stacey mentioned. If we layer on a CRM in some services, now, it may not be fully end to end. We want to have the opportunity for residents and customers to be able to start a process and finish it fully. Maybe that ends in the issuance of some form of payment. Or the issuance of some form of certificate or approval or whatever the case may be. If those processes are not properly mapped out. And applying that lean methodology that we've been talking so much about, those types of things. The concern is that we layer on a CRM that doesn't give a customer fully. End to end resolution of an inquiry or a service request they have, and if we have that. In

place, then we're going to see more frustration with the services. So we're looking to make sure that it is truly end to end and fully accessible, and I would challenge that some of the municipalities that. Have those tools that are layered on top. Now, they may not be really fully end to end. They initiate a process, there's a handoff. There isn't the ability to track. To your point. When was it received? When was it resolved? When was a work crew sent out? To respond. Some of those apps that we're aware of now, or those tools that are out there now may not be fully end to end in the way that we really think that the customer and the resident deserves. Great. Thank you council work our deputy, CaO Trevor Lee would like to grace us. With some comments. So you may have got through to all of council. I'd like to just pull on. A couple of comments that I've heard raised from counselors this afternoon. What does success look like for this project? Success looks like. A utility where our citizens and businesses can interact at various locations around the city in person. And transact a multitude of their business with one single

point of contact, one email, one phone. Number, even a chat bot, which is assisting in some capacities as an assistance to that interchange. Also in person at all those locations. Factoring in tier one resolution of those questions, the CRM will log when those calls come in. When. Are those initiations of discussions at any of those locations that I described. And the resolution time all of that will kick out excellent key performance indicators on the delivery of our services to our businesses and our citizens. So that is the end state. That's success for our team, that's going to be our ultimate goal, and it's achieved by these steps that. Stacy and Steven and others are working to achieve along this pathway of the next three to four. Years. Thank you. Thank you, deputy. All right. Nothing else. No questions? Thank you for the work that you're doing. Appreciate it. You actually laid out in my opinion. You laid out very well in the presentation. What you're doing, what's coming. Up. And I really appreciate that answer to Councilor Rourke about kind of fixing the foundational stuff.

For adding. That CRM on top, so I never thought of it that way. And now I kind of understand personally a little bit why it's taking a little bit of time. To get us there. So I appreciate it. That's my takeaway, so thank you again. I appreciate it. I'll call the vote then. Is anyone against receiving this information? No, that is unanimous. All right. Thank you. And that is it for this meeting. But wait. If you buy now. You'll get a second meeting free of charge. I'm looking for adjournment on this meeting, and then we are going to. Have. Our planning meeting. I believe it is coming up next at 630, which means. We will just be having a break here for a little bit. So I'm looking for adjournment for this one. Who's going to help me out with adjournment? Of course, counts. Our billings is going to help us out with a German who's. Going to help second that one. Councilor Chu is going to second that one. Is anyone against adjournment? No.

So that passes too. We will see everyone's smiley face here at 630 sharp, please. As we start our planning meeting. See you soon.