A new study says San Diego needs to improve the organization and transparency of its Get It Done! tipster app for refunds is a recent development in customer satisfaction with the app, which allows people to easily report potholes, graffiti and other problems.
The six-year-old app often provides consumers with uncertain, incomplete or confusing information about when the problem they reported will be fixed and if there is progress toward that goal, the 48-page audit says.
Robin Kaufman, president of the Rancho Bernardo Community Council and RB Planning Board, said the project is a good idea, but could use some improvements.
“At first the production was slow, but it’s a good idea,” Kaufman said. “People would call their city council or the planning group, (they) would talk to different departments or the City Council office. It makes it easier for the average person by teaching the public how to use it. “
Kaufman said the app’s performance “really went down” during the pandemic. He said the city has lost many workers, which is causing them to be repaired on time and to improve the situation, especially when it comes to street lights.
“There’s a long waiting list for street lights,” Kaufman said, noting that the city has a limited workforce to repair street lights. Therefore, the settlement may take several months.
The review also recommends San Diego catch up with major US cities and other major cities in California by establishing a central 3-1-1 hotline to handle complaints and service requests.
A 3-1-1 system, which would serve as an assistant to Get It Done!, would promote equality by making it easier for non-English speakers and people with technical difficulties to report problems, the researchers said.
The study says a 3-1-1 system could also increase city response times by diverting calls from the Police Department’s non-emergency line.
Mobile phones remain the preferred option for reporting problems to the city. The city receives about a million requests by phone a year compared to 300,000 a year Get It Done! requests.
In response to the findings, city officials agreed to implement all of the changes recommended by Get It Done! Those changes include providing customers with estimated expiration dates for reported problems and progress reports.
The city will also develop new training programs so that staff can provide more information, and develop supervisory procedures to monitor communication between city staff and the people who deliver the Get It Done! requests.
But most of the changes won’t be implemented until next summer or the end of 2023, the study says.
Kaufman recalled reporting a missing street sign for Robleda Court at its intersection with Bernardo Trails Drive in the Rancho Bernardo The Trails neighborhood. He reported it on May 12, 2021 and did not receive a response until July 9, 2022.
“It’s been 14 months since the report was closed and taken care of, just to replace the road sign,” he said.
What happened to him is not unique, based on what he heard from others. Kaufman also said that council members’ offices do not have the pull to get issues resolved quickly.
Potholes and burnt-out streetlights are the problems with the longest delays, he said. Graffiti reports are usually dealt with quickly, as are reports of lost trash collection, he said.
“I’ve noticed that when residents ask for the red curbs to be painted or repainted, they are closed very quickly, within three or four months,” said Kaufman.
City officials rejected the study’s recommendation to establish a 3-1-1 system, arguing that a centralized call center for complaints would further affect customer satisfaction by making it easier to field complaints that the city could not resolve quickly.
Officials said they need to improve city services and the ability to respond to complaints before facing what they expect to be a sharp increase in the number of complaints coming in.
“If done out of order, the city will be giving way at best to a broken system, where consumers can raise issues in multiple ways, but without the resources provided to quickly or effectively resolve these issues,” Kirby wrote. Brady, the city’s chief innovation officer.
City Auditor Andy Hanau said concerns about San Diego being flooded with complaints are too many to handle legally.
“But the answer is not to continue with a situation that makes it difficult for people with limited English skills or technical skills and resources to access city services,” Hanau said.
City officials can work on a plan to create a 3-1-1 system at the same time as increasing the city’s ability to handle complaints more effectively, he said.
“What Makes It Work?” Yes, but it needs to be improved, “said Kaufman. “There are not enough city employees in the departments, so the jobs are not finished” on time.
Of the 10 most populous cities in the country, only San Diego and Phoenix do not have 3-1-1 systems. Of the 10 most populous cities in California, only San Diego, Long Beach and Bakersfield lack 3-1-1 systems.
Similar to the 9-1-1 system, the 3-1-1 system would allow callers to go directly to the city’s hotline for complaints. Such systems were introduced by many cities in the 1990s, Hanau said.
The survey comes as part of the annual reports for the Get It Done! app has doubled since 2018, mainly because city officials have added different types of problems that can be reported to more than 60.
The number of reports rose from 148,946 in 2018 to 296,209 in 2021. Meanwhile, customer satisfaction dropped from 3.4 to 3.1 on a scale of 1 to 5.
Customer satisfaction varies greatly with the type of problem reported. Applications related to camping, missed waste collection and car parking were to drop significantly between 2018 and 2021.
The survey says that a key factor in low satisfaction is the app often telling customers that their case is “closed” when the problem is not fully resolved.
In general, city officials have marked the case closed because there is nothing the city can do immediately.
The survey says it’s often because the problem is on private land or land in another city, or because the remediation is planned as part of an upcoming major project. Sampling and analysts estimate that 19 percent of applications receive a false “closed” message.
In response to the investigation, city officials agreed to provide consumers with more information than just saying the case was closed.