Hotline enhances customer service.

A parks and facilities hotline was created by the City of Miamisburg (Ohio) Parks and Facilities Division so that citizens could give input, ask questions or report concerns regarding city parks and public buildings. Since the implementation of the hotline, the department has added more parks and green spaces, which can now be better maintained thanks to this vital way for the public to communicate facility concerns.

The hotline was created to assist maintenance operations in providing high-quality facilities that are ready to be used daily. Given that facility conditions can change at anytime, the hotline is a means for customers to contact staff to report concerns, giving staff the opportunity to respond instantly. The hotline also improves maintenance efficiency. Typically, supervisors prepare each day's work based on maintenance and activity schedules. As staff visits sites for routine maintenance, they may see unsafe conditions and may not have the proper tools and supplies to repair items. Valuable staff time is used assessing the situation, traveling to secure tools and supplies, returning back to the site and then performing the needed repairs. Even worse, the unsafe condition may be located at a facility that isn't scheduled for maintenance on a particular day. The hotline provides a means for supervisors to become aware of problems and to more efficiently schedule and equip staff to remedy situations when they're informed.

The hotline is promoted several ways. A laminated poster is in each park and public facility, and the number is printed on the back cover of Civic Focus, a city publication that's mailed to all residents. Press releases were sent and published by the local paper. The information is also on the city's Web page and the city cable television show, and is posted periodically during programming on the public access cable station.

The hotline is always available. The system records a message with the name and phone number of caller, the facility and list the specific concerns. Then it pages the parks and facilities manager on call. A tracking form was created to track caller information, facility concerns and response time. Managers were trained on hotline procedures, customer service and maintenance standards.

The goals of the hotline have been met. Customers immediately used the hotline, and continue to do so. More than a dozen calls were received in two months with concerns such as graffiti, vandalism, mowing a park, bees in playground equipment, stopped-up toilets, confusion regarding shelter reservations, electric power in a shelter, ball diamond preparations, bike usage on the skatepark and an irrigation leak.

--NRPA Member Debbie McLaughlin, parks and facilities superintendent, Miamisburg, Ohio