Customizability Is Just the Ticket for the City of Sioux Falls
Taxpayer-driven budgets mean that state and local governments often have to make do with what they have rather than what they want – or need. But the City of Sioux Falls, South Dakota discovered that the customizability inherent in the CRM software from Vertical Solutions, Inc. not only enabled it to improve its IT service desk, but to automate its citizen complaint department, its police internal affairs system, as well as a health department application.
Dana Evans joined the City of Sioux Falls as an IT analyst in 2002. Each city analyst is responsible for particular departments, and one of Evans’s charges is the IT help desk. The help desk supports 1,100 city employees; it logs more than 650 incidents per month in the slow season, and close to 900 per month in the busy season. Evans’s first task upon joining the department was to find an IT service management solution that would help the city not only improve its response to service-desk calls, but track its IT inventory. It also needed to be affordable in order to fit the city’s limited budget.
“We had a difficult time tracking our IT inventory, and because we are a city government, we need to be able to track everything that is purchased via a PO,” explains Evans. The inventory of 4,000 items encompasses nearly everything in the city’s IT department, from computers, printers, and handheld devices to network cards.
After researching several systems, Evans recommended implementing CRM software from Cincinnati, OH-based Vertical Solutions, Inc. (VSI), a developer of CRM software solutions that offer in-depth functionality for support, field service, sales/marketing automation, and mobile environments. “With VSI technology, we can tie our help-desk information to our asset management information, which is very beneficial.”
VSI CRM technology also offers the city a more sophisticated way to manage its IT incidents as well as powerful reporting capabilities. “Each year, we have to justify our positions and demonstrate exactly what our technicians and analysts are doing,” says Evans. “With VSI’s CRM solutions, we can pull the information we need and generate the reports that show our workload.”
Because VSI’s CRM system has an automated incident-logging feature, end users can generate their own tickets. “That helps keep our agents more productive,” says Evans. “They are working on resolving incidents rather than logging calls.” The system also automatically escalates incidents, meaning Evans’s time is no longer spent monitoring calls or issuing email reminders to agents.
Evans’s team plans to deploy the Mobile module of the VSI CRM software package, which will be used by field technicians to create and close calls in the field. “Our inventory moves around so much, and our field techs need to be able to go to a site and find out exactly what is in each location,” says Evans. “With VSI’s CRM application, we can track it online, rather than processing stacks of paper.”
While VSI’s CRM solutions have helped the city get a handle on its inventory and streamline its IT service desk, the flexibility and customizability of the tool has led to its use in a variety of capacities within the city. For example, the city used a homegrown software tool to manage and track its citizen complaints, which run the gamut from snowplowing problems to parking issues. The system was very limited and inefficient, offered no reporting or escalation, and required one person to monitor a single email inbox and generate tickets for each incident. “The department asked me if our VSI software could be customized to manage it, and I said yes!” remarks Evans. She tailored the program to the department’s needs, and now citizens can log their complaints online. While volume varies dramatically, issues are now routed automatically to the right person, each of whom is responsible for responding within three days. “VSI’s CRM application was a huge productivity enhancer for us,” says Evans. “Because the system is now automated, we are able to respond a lot faster to citizen complaints.”
Evans’s successes with the Citizen Complaint department spurred calls from other divisions, including the city’s police and health departments. Evans customized the software to automate the police department’s reporting system. Rather than tracking paper-based incidents by walking from desk to desk, the department can log information using VSI’s application. Supervisors can log into the system at any time and find the status of incidents. A new implementation in the department of health will allow patients secure communication with the city. “The city wanted to enable online chats with patients, but we needed to make sure they were secure enough to comply with HIPAA requirements,” explains Evans. “We will use VSI’s CRM software to set up a portal where patients log in using a secure username and password so they can communicate directly with clinical staff.”
For Evans and the City of Sioux Falls, the flexibility of VSI’s CRM software has been able to stretch resources as well as create uniformity of process across multiple departments. “The system is very easy to use, and it’s customizable,” says Evans. “We push it! It’s all one program, but I can modify it for each user.”
Because the system is intuitive and user-friendly, Evans has not needed much formal training; she is able to simply use the system’s opening page as an instruction manual, referencing the steps taken to create tickets or complete any other task. “The system is intuitive, and each user can find the information they need quickly and easily,” says Evans. “We are able to track a lot more information, and respond faster to our end-user and citizen requests. For us, VSI CRM technology works, and offered a great return on investment.”
About Vertical Solutions, Inc. (VSI)
Vertical Solutions, Inc. develops, implements, and supports best-in-class CRM Contact Center and Service Management solutions, including PowerHelp® and its new generation technology solutions, VContactCenter™, for internal, external, and hybrid contact centers, and VServiceManagement™, for customer support, field service, and mobile environments. It also develops, implements, and supports patient services technology solution VHealthTracker™. These application systems are built on a SOAcompliant, cloud-based technology platform and are delivered as a service or onpremise in a private or public cloud environment. VSI's applications are flexible, integrate easily with legacy systems, and offer rapid deployment times, driving down TCO and delivering high ROI. VSI is headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, with offices and partners worldwide. For more information, visit www.VertSol.com or call 1.800.466.0238.
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