Selectron has worked with Oklahoma City Development Center for over 7 years, bringing convenient and efficient inspection scheduling right to their citizens’ fingertips. Our combination of self-service inspection scheduling and inspection assignment tools have streamlined their customer experience and saved their inspection supervisors hours of time every day.

Problem
Oklahoma City first came to Selectron interested in an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution to automate their inspection scheduling process. Prior to deploying the IVR, people who needed inspections would have to call the department and speak with a Customer Service Representative (CSR) or send a fax to schedule an inspection. This forced CSRs to field a huge volume of inbound calls and request, costing hours of staff time.

On the back end of the process, each inspection supervisor was spending nearly an hour each morning re-assigning inspections for inspectors who were unexpectedly absent or unavailable. Their permitting system would automatically assign these inspections initially, but last-minute changes forced managers to spend significant time every morning ensuring all inspections had been assigned, and the workload was balanced appropriately.

Solution
Selectron’s Relay IVR and SelecTXT systems automated the inspection scheduling process by:

• Allowing users to schedule their own inspections without needing the help of a CSR
• Making inspection statuses and results accessible via a simple phone call or text to the automated system
• Automatically updating the inspection database with requests and results entered into the IVR or SelecTXT system
• Eliminating the time lag that could sometimes occur between a customer requesting an inspection and the CSR logging it in the inspection database

In addition to these self-service tools for customers, Selectron helped the department improve its back-office process with Atlas Insight, which significantly reduced the time inspection supervisors had to spend reassigning inspections each morning by:

• displaying all daily inspections spatially on a map
• showing all inspectors and their assigned inspections side by side
• allowing managers to easily drag-and-drop inspections to re-assign
• providing access to key inspection and inspector data to optimize assignments by trade, specialty or location

Selectron integrated Insight to the city’s existing inspection database, allowing it to pull in all relevant inspection data automatically and ensuring it functioned in tandem with department infrastructure.

Results
The Relay IVR made scheduling inspections quick and painless, improving both the inspection process and the customer experience by:

• Automating an average of 6,000 inbound calls per month and allowing customers to schedule inspections without waiting on hold
• Saving 30-40 minutes per inspection supervisor per day in time spent reassigning inspections
• Streamlining the inspection process by ensuring efficient assignments and reducing the number of extra stops inspectors need to make in a day
• Balancing workload across inspectors by allowing supervisors to easily compare and adjust assignments

Inspection supervisors still frequently need to reassign inspections. But with Insight, this process takes minutes, saving time for supervisors and helping inspectors work as efficiently as possible.

In their own words
David Adcock, Development Manager at Oklahoma City says,

“Ever since we installed (the IVR and SelecTXT), we’ve wondered how we ever got along without them.”

CSRs still field thousands of calls a month for other specific requests, but the automated systems handle the majority of all inspection requests and ensure the process moves as efficiently as possible, improving the experience for the customer.

For Atlas Insight, he touted the user-friendliness:

“Any time you show someone a change to their process, they’re hesitant. Atlas Insight was one of the only changes where people liked it immediately. When you have a program that’s so user-intuitive you don’t have to explain it. It does what it looks like it’ll do.”