Chapter 3, Case 2: Customer Relationship Management for San Francisco's City Government

San Francisco had a serious issue in dealing with abandoned cars all over their city. According to the video, "SFGTV Customer Relationship Management CRM San Francisco" found on YouTube, San Francisco is the "fourth largest city in California," (City and County of San Francisco, 2007), so it is easy to see why any city wide issue would be a large one to tackle. Previously, San Francisco used a voice mail type system to track vehicles that may need to be impounded, however this proved to be very confusing and hard to use for the city's residents. The old system unfortunately made it difficult for people to report abandoned vehicles, and it posed issues in processing said vehicles. One issue that was constant would be the reporting of the same vehicle multiple times. It was crucial that the San Francisco's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) come up with a system for tracking these vehicles that were causing the city issues. I think it is important to note that any time spent listening to the voice mail of a vehicle that was already reported was wasted labor hours, and was therefore costing the City of San Francisco money. By developing a new system, San Francisco "stream-lined" the reporting process. One major change to the CRM process was the addition of the "human element," meaning that instead of leaving a voice mail  citizens were prompted to speak to one-on-one to a human, simplifying the way that the city is notified of abandoned vehicles. People like to talk to other people, that is just how it works. I have always found it interesting over the years how difficult that it has become to hear the voice of another human on the other end of a customer service line! Obviously interacting with a human is going to be more appealing to customers, rather than transacting with an answering machine. The changes also helped to broaden the lines of communication between the city's different agencies, making information readily available for all of those who may possess a need for it (such as the Abandoned Vehicle Detail). I personally would attribute the approach that the City of San Francisco took as to that of the Japanese Total Quality Control (TQC) because of their "head-on approach to making changes to [their] information system" (Laudon & Laudon, 2012). "The term 'quality control' was coined back in 1935. It referred to a set of activities whose purpose was to assure that products met established quality standards" (Carr, 1990) however it has obviously evolved from its foundations over time. It seems as though the City of San Francisco did the right thing for their operation by identifying issues within their systems, and correcting them to the best of their ability.

Works Cited:

Carr, F. (1990, June 25). Doing the right thing through Japanese-style TQC. Government Computer News, 9(13), 90. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.db24.linccweb.org/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA8618994&v=2.1&u=lincclin_spjc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w

City and County of San Francisco, 2007. "SFGTV Customer Relationship Management CRM San Francisco" retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eoEoaev9BI

Goodwillion In San Francisco. 2012. Photograph. San Francisco. Goodwillion Blog. Admin, 15 June 2012. Web. 20 Mar. 2013.

Laudon, K., & Laudon, J. (2012). Management information systems. (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.