MINTO – An automated answering system will be part of a new telephone system for the town’s municipal administration centre.
Council approved the installation of the new system at its Jan. 10 meeting.
“The Town of Minto municipal office has been using the same phone system for over 20 years,” noted deputy clerk Annilene McRobb in a staff report.
“The system we currently have is outdated and new items for this system are no longer available.”
The report notes a two-week tracking of phone calls during November revealed that of 440 calls tracked, 385 callers knew either the person or department they wished to speak to, while 55 callers wished to have general information.
“If each call took approximately two minutes each, this is almost 15 hours of the clerk’s department’s time spent answering calls and transferring to the correct department or person,” the report explains.
The new system will be automatically answered, “To provide the best customer service to our residents as well as provide staff with the opportunity of uninterrupted work time.”
Though a live person will not be answering, the opportunity to speak to someone immediately by pushing zero will be given as the first message, McRobb points out.
An opportunity for after-hours emergency transfer to on-call phones will also be provided. The new system also provides email notification to staff if a message has been left on their extension, allowing them to receive their messages even if not in the building.
”Of course our main concern is having the best service that we can for our residents, but balancing it out with staff having time to be able do the work that they have been assigned to do,” McRobb told council.
Deputy Mayor Dave Turton asked how many municipalities “are still live answering their phones?”
“I know most of the ones I call are not live answering,” said McRobb.
“I’m just wondering if we’ve had any thought for rotary dial phones?” asked councillor Judy Dirksen. “I’m assuming there are still some rotary phones out there.”
McRobb explained that while rotary phone users would have to listen to the entire message, “the message will be fairly short.”
Council authorized staff to purchase the system from Wightman Telecom at a cost of $10,507.
Treasurer/acting clerk Gordon Duff pointed out that when the town looked into a new phone system a few years back, costs came in at over $18,000.
“So they’ve come down quite a bit,” he noted.
