By Deon Roberts, Online Editor
As for customer service, there’s always room for improvement at New Orleans City Hall.
I’ve been a reporter in New Orleans for nearly five years. So, I’ve had many interactions with City Hall staff in various departments.
To be fair, some are very helpful. They treat you warmly, call you baby and actually smile. Others will ignore you or, worse, be flat out rude. They seem to be miserable to be at work and want to make you miserable, too.
But bad attitudes are only one form of bad customer service coming out of City Hall. Bad customer service can also be found on the city’s Web site.
In his column this week, CityBusiness Publisher Mark Singletary pointed out that one page of the city’s Web site lists only fax numbers for various divisions of the Department of Public Works. But they are not labeled as fax numbers. So, when you call them, expecting to get a person or answering machine on the other end, you instead get an earful of that painful, annoying faxing sound.
I hate that.
This is not good customer service. Why list only fax numbers for the maintenance and parking divisions and construction and traffic engineering? Better yet, why not label them as fax numbers so callers won’t get blasted with that awful noise?
Bad customer service is bad for business. Everybody knows that.
The city needs to take a closer look at its Web site. We need to make it easier for businesses and residents to get in touch with City Hall.
What about you? Have you had bad experiences with customer service at City Hall or on the city’s Web site? I want to hear your gripe. Leave a comment.
2 responses so far ↓
LB // Monday, January 7, 2008 at 5:16 pm |
Hate to say it, but it seems since Meffert, the city hall IT guru and his top staff left, the website and it’s many links don’t work as well as they used to. You could send in a complaint and usually it was fixed pretty quickly. Not sure who is in charge of site maintenance, but they are not doing a very good job.
I certainly liked the website when it was put online. It sure beat trying to call city hall and trying to get info, have a questioned answered, or take care of business.
Would love to see it developed further and working better.
John // Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 12:43 pm |
I agree with the previous comment. Like everything else with the Nagin Administration, the city website has been deteriorating. The webmaster never responds to complaints regarding broken links. You used to be able to report a pothole or missing street sign, but no longer. Lights are on (barely) at City Hall, but nobody’s home.