Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and call our uh six o'clock.

I'm sorry, it is six o'clock.

Our uh off Monday work sessions order from March 9, 2026.

Uh, we have two items on our agenda this evening.

First is a city communications discussion, and then we will move to go into closed sessions.

So I see that Sydney is sitting at a microphone.

Hello, and the city girl and you want me just to kick it to Sydney.

All right.

All right, good evening, Mayor and Council.

I'm Sydney Olson, our engagement and public communications manager.

Um, I have a few slides to go through, nothing very long.

I think you may be familiar with some of this, but please feel free to stop me as we go if that is easiest.

So we wanted to talk about a few highlights tonight, and this is regarding the new communications department.

So we'll talk about the vision and goals for that department, how we aim to achieve those goals, and then our strategic communication plan goals at a high level as well.

So this department is going to serve as a strategic hub for citywide messaging.

Um, it's built really around a hybrid model, so it is not centralized, but this department will be able to provide some flexibility and support for the other departments.

I think one important thing to understand is that this department will incorporate creative services and marketing engagement and public communication staff and our contact center staff as well.

So each of those three areas will be coming together to form this.

Couple key takeaways.

So this is not a centralized communications model.

So for some context, our key different departments, most of them have what's called a public information specialist who's responsible for pushing out communications from their department.

Those individuals will still stay within their departments and report to someone within those departments as well.

But this new department will help support and coordinate messaging while not controlling their messaging specific to their areas.

Um a big role this department's gonna play is ensuring citywide branding and messaging consistency, and we'll talk a little bit more about that.

And then this approach will just provide some consistency for our media members and also for our residents so they know what to expect.

To back up a little bit, I think it's important to highlight that we understand that our departments oftentimes have their own voice.

Um, and we talk about this one example would be the Columbia Police Department provides a different kind of messaging and a different tone than perhaps our convention and visitors bureau.

So this will allow us to maintain that and be cognizant of that while still providing more support.

So some of our goals, uh, we want to enhance external communications.

We push a lot of information out on a weekly basis as a city a lot.

Um, but we want to do a better job of telling our story on some of those bigger picture things.

And so while we oftentimes do a great job of getting messaging out about opportunities such as interested parties meetings or work being done in the different areas, we don't always do quite as well telling the story of our successes or maybe facilitating some of that citywide messaging.

And when I talk about this, I primarily think about topics that are citywide and potentially impact more than one department.

An example would be like our pedestrian safety ordinance, messaging around that.

Media and public relations.

Um we have a lot of reporters in this town, if you have not noticed.

And so we want to make sure that we are responsive to their needs, and um, this can help us provide some flexibility and support for the departments and ensuring we have consistent messaging and proactively pitching stories to our media partners as well.

So we're a little bit of a unique um media market.

We don't really need to pitch stories because there are so many reporters here, but I think there are opportunities that we miss um in telling our stories and just being proactive and providing information.

And then crisis communications.

Um, this is a big one.

So, as you know, we had a tornado this year, and that was a prime example of why you need to be prepared.

And so, crisis communications is a point that this new department and department director can take point on and help collaborate with the department so we're as prepared as we can be for incidents such as that.

Or yeah, yeah, it's okay to interrupt.

Okay, oh can you go back slide?

Yes.

I'm so sorry, I didn't sound release.

What'd you say, platform?

I don't think yeah.

If we just go back one slide.

I think I went past where you're I think you did.

This is where we were.

This is back one.

That's it.

So you're talking about brand and message consistency.

This is where so far I can see the challenge being.

If you've got these different departments with their own staff that are doing communications.

Yeah, you want to maintain some consistency.

Can you give a real world world example of what that might look like?

Yeah, so we have uh brand identity, and we're in the process of updating that.

And so the comparison that I always like to make internally is if you go to a McDonald's, you know it's a McDonald's immediately because you recognize the golden arches.

So no matter what department the information may be coming out from, we want to ensure that it's recognizable immediately to residents, and so they know it's a trusted source, it's coming from the city, and we can do that through things like templates and um you know, providing consistency with uh our logos and things like that readily available to the departments.

Does that answer your question?

So it's not so much about the content of any particular message as it is the manner in which it's done.

Yes, and I think this is kind of where I think staff might get nervous about you know who's telling them how they can do their job.

Yeah, it's gonna have to be very collaborative with the department.

So I was talking to someone about my role here at the city in the my five years here, and I think it's always important for whoever's in this position to come to departments and work on maybe implementing some standards or talk about a different way to approach something to remember that those are the subject matter experts.

So it's just gonna be really incumbent upon the person who comes into the director role to understand it's just as important to listen as it is to guide their communications as well.

I'm not an engineer, and I'm not a cop, and you know, the list goes on and on, and so it's an opportunity for them to learn, but also provide that big city C perspective as well.

Well, and I think there's that benefit, right, to the consistency to it, and I think it's more than even just the branding on that, it's the understanding of timeliness.

Like I'm assuming we'll put in some standards related to not just like what it looks like, but this is the time frame of which you would expect a response to a question.

You know, I mean, I I hope at least it's kind of that sort of expectation to the professionalism of the city staff is that we will respond within this amount of time.

You will expect to have an update within you know, I mean that's sort of like follow follow through is more than just the look.

Yeah, so I think two examples would be um providing information ahead of events so that our residents can have plenty of opportunity to plan to attend something so we can standardize that to the best of our abilities.

Another thing would be uh media follow-up to those events, maybe throw that in there is like a what was said at it.

Yes, yeah, highlighting them after the fact would be one.

Um, another thing would be media inquiries and ensuring that all of our departments are being responsive in a timely manner and what that expectation looks like, and this I think is an opportunity for staff to provide support as well.

So there's additional resources available to the public information specialist.

We'll get a little bit more into that in.

Okay, um, so already talked a little bit about this, but sharing our successes, our milestones, impacts of the things we do, that's a big one.

So, for example, we have our community summit coming up Saturday.

Shameless plug, please come from that to new at City Hall.

Um, but that's an opportunity where we get immense amounts of feedback from residents, and that's an opportunity for us to talk about what we've done with that feedback.

So we've tried to implement that into the event this year, but I think that's an opportunity where when we know it's recurring on a yearly basis, we can be proactive about that and coordinate that with the departments.

Internal communication is another one.

Um, obviously, we have about 18 departments, and there's a lot going on, and so providing some standards for that information to be shared across the organization as appropriate, and from city leadership as well, and providing that support.

Content strategy would include things like our newsletters, our social media content, and just the overall packages on how we're presenting information, and I do want to highlight that this is even more important than ever to be coordinated through this office due to the changes to um accessibility rules laws, and then brand alignment.

We already talked about that.

We wanted to make sure that it is um our tone, our messaging, it's talking about all of our things like the strategic plan, but also that it's immediately recognizable because as we all know, information comes at people so fast and from so many different places these days.

So this is talking about how we're gonna do that.

Um, and we're gonna call it the city newsroom model.

So, really, as someone who worked in a newsroom, I envision this as the departments collaborating, they're coming together on a regular basis, they're talking about what's happening, they're making sure that they're covering things that are timely and leaning on each other when they need to.

Um, so our department public information specialists will really serve as their beat writers.

So they'll provide content, um, provide story leads, and then also help get out that day-to-day information that you're already seeing, like press releases, for example.

Um this content will flow through a single shared system, and this is important because it allows us to track and prioritize what is being done.

And so we sent out an email today to staff where people can submit if they need content to be created by the communications department.

There's a Google form, it's all coming into one place, and we can easily track what's being done.

Um, and then we already talked about support through things like templates, branding and marketing, and just coordinated messaging.

Strategic communications plan.

So our office, specifically our wonderful Christian Tayback has worked on a strategic communications plan, and this establishes several goals for this department, um, including citywide messaging, telling our story, crisis communications readiness, and then having that internal communications plan.

So consistent messaging.

Um, when we talk about this, we really want to highlight that we need to bring up how all of our work is tied into the plans and the things that guide our city.

So, our strategic plan, for example, how does what the work we're doing?

How does it fit into our mission and our values?

Um, we will also have things like our community survey, which now goes out annually again.

We have data from that, we have feedback from our community summit.

So, how are we making sure that what we're doing, how we're communicating what we're doing and the ways it ties back to the feedback we receive from our residents and following up on that?

Um we would do this through a citywide communications plan.

So uh I believe staff would come together on a more regular basis and talk about what's going on, what do we need to be thinking about that's coming up, how do we look at our communications for the next month, for example, and prioritize what needs to go out, how are we coordinating how that's getting out, when it's going out, what assets do we need to get that out, etc.

And then having someone who is within this department make sure that that's getting done.

Um, we talked about updating the brand and style guide.

Our graphic designers and staff internally are in the process of doing that now.

We have one.

Um, it wasn't shared widely within the organization before, so we're doing a refresh.

We want to get feedback from the departments on that and train them on that, allow them to ask questions and update that with us, and then we'll share that widely.

And it will help us create those templates and those newsletters and reports, and really this just makes for a more efficient process because we do push out so much.

Using the newsroom model, we'll have um the department head and the supervisors help coordinate communicating about those things that we know are upcoming.

We will have a plan for the year, so that editorial can't calendar, excuse me.

Um, we can already map out what we know is gonna be happening, community summit, strategic plan, all of those major initiatives is winter, there's gonna be potholes.

Let's just go ahead and talk about what our process is for that, for example, and then um they can help coordinate those communication media packages and all of the assets that need to are needed to tell that story.

Crisis communications readiness.

Obviously, so we do training now with all of our departments.

I've coordinated with the Office of Emergency Management with the University of Missouri, and we've had tabletop exercises to talk about what we would do if we had a tornado, which turned out to be very useful this year.

But I think we can go even further than that.

We always uh like to say we should be planning on what's called the blue sky days, which is when everything's going right.

And so having a citywide crisis communications plan will help, and I think having this department will make it more clear what roles are when we have an incident and who's responsible for overseeing the messaging and coordinating that in the event of something horrible happening.

Can I pause you on this one?

Absolutely, and and and understanding that we only have here for like another week and a half, so it's you know a bullet points act for the next person to do.

Yeah.

Um I would like for one thing to be thought of, and in the card that I'll look to you on this, is also what's the role of the mayor and council in these instances, right?

Because there's expectations.

A, I know your next one is about internal communications, and I hope that we kind of get included in that too, those sort of internal updates.

I guess not newsworthy yet, but we get these FYIs, and this is something that the city manager worked closely with council on, but also as a professional expectation, what are the expectations for us to put up the information about a natural disaster or an expected, you know, or and not just crisis communications, but going back to previous um goals that are that are on the on the list, but like the city story in those days.

And so when we're putting together those templates, what role, what role can the council play uh and and to utilize us as a as a spokesperson as because people will expect us to like there if something happens in the first board, they're gonna expect that Valerie can talk about it.

And so, like, what will be our SOP for that, like standard operating procedure for that, and what can we expect?

That's a great point.

Hold on, just one second, please.

Um, we talked about with that communications plan, including in that for just the general monthly communications plan, for example, what information we need to be sharing with council and how often and how you're receiving that, and then I think that's incredibly important for crisis communications as well to sort of establish a rhythm of how often information will be shared, and sometimes no new information in a crisis is still information.

So understanding that, how we can set expectations for council and for residents and media as well.

Well, and to build upon it, it's also also so that we have an understanding and and we've agreed upon it, what our expectations are, what to do with that information, right?

So we get current events, we see that the press releases come out.

Like, what do you want us to do with it?

You know what I mean?

Like what should we be doing to encourage people to to go to those stories?

Just like just help make it very clear, because you have a bunch of people who are working full-time in part-time position, trying to help out and do everything they can.

So trying to make sure that we can be as helpful in that role as well.

Okay.

Yeah.

Valerie, did you have a I'd like to ask if it would be grab the microphone, please.

Would it be helpful for council to have someone on communications that reports through this newsroom style beat thing?

That way we have someone who can communicate what we're working on as to all the other departments, and or communicate back to us, we need someone from council to speak to XYZ.

Flesh out to me more what your first part was.

So, like um, so for like us to share with the communications department what a council member is up to?

Maybe not what a council member is up to, but these are the things, and this is somewhat what DeCarlin's doing through the council quarter, right?

That these are the things that are coming up on our agenda.

Here's right, here's the things you can expect to hear from council.

Um yeah, I think it would be good for us, and I like the start of the council quarter.

I like how that's been going.

I think it would be good for us to communicate on that a little bit more.

Yeah.

Um yeah, so in this conversation about how to use us, our meetings as well.

Like the yeah, the work sessions coming up, different things coming up, is there topics to put put about, and especially like the ones that are have like a opportunity like if someone can't attend the meeting, but like there's a be heard page to it, right?

How to then kind of link the multiple opportunities.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's great.

What was your second one?

Sorry.

Oh, to be there.

Someone attached to that is the two-way communication through like, hey, we need someone from council, you know, something happened in the first ward.

Can Valerie come talk about this?

Or you know, there's a crisis.

Can the mayor say a few words about this?

You know, I I think having that back and forth as a point person in the beat meeting would be helpful.

And I guess we probably just because of like us not having your you there's we have two staff, we I don't even count the judge as much.

So, like I guess it's kind of maybe your expectations for maybe the communications director position to maybe sort of play that, but it's technically through you.

Right.

So do you see that?

I'm sorry.

So one of the positions that we do have in the uh city manager's office is to public information specialists, and so one could be associated to make sure that we communicate with the city council.

Yeah, yeah.

I think with that increased capacity, we'll more easily be able to do that for sure.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, you called it.

So internal communications.

Um, I think what is really important for a focus in internal communications is having our staff hear from leadership.

So when we ask our staff um through surveys, how they feel about communication within the organization, you know, we see that there's a gap um between leadership and the further you go within the organization, and we want to help close that.

So having a regular uh plan for communications coming from leaders to our staff, making sure that they understand what's happening, what decisions are being made in the organization, and just hearing some regular updates from our city managers, for example, potentially department heads as well, will help with that.

Um we part of that too is highlighting their success.

So we do what's called an employee spotlight right now, and that talks about some employees and what their job is and how they serve at the city, and it's a great way to humanize staff, but it's also a great way to recognize their work.

We'd like to build off of that more.

And you know, we have people who work in the city that are just amazing, they're here for quite literally longer than I've been alive, and I think we need to celebrate that.

I mean, we have people who have committed their whole working career to the city, and um it's just important that they are recognized for the work that they're doing as one example.

So, and then obviously part of that is two-way communications as well.

So we want to survey our workforce and understand what kind of information that they want.

Uh if they want some more opportunity to engage with leadership as well.

Um, one example of how we've done that is implementing coffee with the city manager.

So our city manager goes once a month.

We try to get out to a different division or department and meet with staff, and it's very casual.

We just bring coffee, it's an opportunity for them to meet him, ask any questions they may have in an informal setting, and we've heard really positive feedback from that.

Um, I think we sometimes forget as the people who come to these meetings regularly that not everyone has regular access to the boss, and I think sometimes it can be intimidating.

And I've heard great things through that, like they're like, Oh, I thought he was gonna be scary, he's so nice, and that was great to just hear from him.

Like, okay.

Um, so implementing new initiatives such as that.

Can I well never make a rant question, so it's fine.

No, please, anything.

So, one thing that um I think especially related to this internal communications plan, and and I'll like as we're building this out and the additional like kind of actions and expectations under it.

Um, is also what we're hearing as um city staff are out engaging to the community because I'll note that this is the communications and engagement discussion, but engagement was not listed as any of the goals.

So I don't know if that's like a separate thing that we're gonna be getting to, but um, but I think about the feedback that we receive, right?

So you mentioned the contact center and engagement, like the feedback that the contact center gets would be really useful then to share to the other departments, like hey, we're hearing this a lot, right?

Or or also like we're out at um an interested parties meeting for the parks department, and something completely unrelated to the project comes up.

Like, how are we doing that in gate that what's the level of expectation that that staff or from the parks department can expect to have to share with public works about something that's not parks related?

You know, another great example I think would be our let's talk local meetings because those tend to bring up a lot of different topics, yeah.

And I know our council members do a great job of summarizing those to their constituents, but I think we can do a better job of summarizing to our own staff internally about what we're hearing.

Um, so regarding engagement, we plan to do a strategic plan related to I say we, I hope I won't be here, but we have discussed doing a strategic plan with engagement, tying that in with this communications, making sure they're working cohesively.

Um, but we're gonna have a work session on engagement as well to talk about our engagement guide, which is really our guiding document to how we approach that.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I'll just like give an example.

We had in my neighborhood, Amran is doing a really big project, uh, and like a lot of us subscribe to our newsletter, right?

And so we knew what was going on.

Well, somebody doesn't, and so they called the city, and no, like Stephanie already knows about this, called in like the context center didn't know about it, but like probably somebody in engineering, you know, or planning or community development knows about it, but we don't necessarily think to tell, oh hey, in case anyone calls 874 city, there's a big project going on and it's legitimate, like they're they're allowed to be digging in your front yard.

But you know what I mean?

Just that kind of like any of those opportunities that staff have to kind of give the heads up to especially frontline employees, I think would be really useful.

Okay, yeah, that's good feedback.

Yeah, well, just sort of a statement.

I I think in thinking about all this, um, sort of expect us to know everything, and I think that's one of the biggest challenges about serving on the council.

Uh it's my effort as often as I can to send them to the people who do know.

Uh, but it's it's caused me to think that the folks who are answering the phones are probably in a very or aren't in a very similar kind of situation.

And so this this loop, this communications loop is gonna be really important.

This is big because I mean, just the the volume of press releases alone is hard to keep up with and to manage.

So I think that that's probably I'm sure that's true for the people that are answering the phones.

Um so that's just a big challenge.

I I have a question really for you to Carlton.

Um I hear Sydney's leaving, um, and all of this is great, and it really addresses a lot of the concerns that the council has, of course, about communicating.

This is this is likely to evolve over time too, even as there are changes in the way that people are receiving information.

Absolutely.

But are we gonna be able to are we gonna be able to pass this on to this next person?

Do you think it's gonna be in a package so that they'll be able to pick it up and go with it?

That's the goal.

I mean, the idea is that we're doing a lot of work right now, so the person who walks in the door, they don't walk in trying to figure out how do I put this puzzle together.

Um I think from from this community is uh we're a very large organization, but we act like a very small organization, and to make sure that we're communicating correctly is trying to pull all those silos together.

I think Sydney started off saying that we have 18 different departments, and for the longest time the city operated as it was 18 individual organizations that were kind of working in their own sphere, not one cohesive big city, and so for the last few years that's what we've been trying to do is kind of pull it together to one big city.

I think this next step is actually having a somewhat centralized but still decentralized communication hub will allow for us to have that better use for our communication efforts.

I mean, right now departments do a great job of responding to the now, but we're not very great about proactively speaking about the then or the when.

And so, how do we make sure we do that?

And so this should allow us to do that.

Now, I'm hopeful that by doing the work now, when we are able to hire a director for this department, they'll be able to walk in and say, Okay, I see it.

There's still a lot of work to be done.

You know, they're still looking at what are some of the gaps that we need to ritual improvement on what is what does our talk emergency plan look like, but they'll have a lot of the bones already in place, so it should make it easier for them to move forward.

If I can add on to that, I think our my goal too before I leave is really trying to put that infrastructure in place for the next person.

So, you know, we've purchased software that'll allow us to text our residents, getting that set up and ready to go.

Um, we're doing starting the process of purging some of our social media accounts because we have far, far, far, far, far too many, and it's hard to reach people when they have to follow so many.

So getting that done so they don't have to come in to that mess, and um, you know, we have uh social listening now, and some of those things that hopefully will help that person be able to easily step in and at least have the tools to be able to easily make decisions about what changes need to take place.

Um, I'm gonna still what Jack usually asks is like what's the time frame for this, and how are you going to see whether this is working?

I mean, this sounds great, but who's actually gonna say in a year this you know, we've got 80% of this done and this is working or what's not working because this is the kind of thing that sounds really good, and it'll just sort of like it won't really work, it'll just sort of sound good.

Well, so how are we gonna what's your time frame and how are you gonna you know who's gonna be evaluating this and making sure that this is actually important?

Well, I mean, the the first step is actually hire the director, so that's that's our primary code.

So that's advertisements should start one thing.

I would hope this week we're just finalizing the pressure, yeah.

And so ideally, we can have we'll have interviews in May, hopefully have somebody on board by July.

Uh once that person's on board, the next step is to kind of start working out the communication plan as a whole.

My goal is for you to be involved in that, you know, who's going to help evaluate this city council.

Part of the thought is what are the things that you see that we're not doing that we can improve on.

And then as we're having our communication touch points, well, it's coming back to say, okay, is this working?

Do we need to do we need to move we need to pivot?

I think the one thing that we have to be we have to be aware of is sometimes when we develop plans, sometimes when we develop processes, we will hit a we'll hit a pilot.

We will try something and say that didn't quite work.

And we have to accept that no.

Sometimes failing is not necessarily a bad thing.

It allows you to reset and then move keep continue to move forward.

And so that's the goal.

But the goal is to force to be making sure that we're having constant communications with not just the council, but also with department directors, because this is a change.

And this is different from how we've done things.

And so making sure that we have buy-in is important.

But also making sure that we can see if we are succeeding and what our goals are.

And so establishing these goals and being able to step back and say, okay, is this working or do we need to pivot and do something different?

Can I ask when we're um talking about that kind of um you know what you expect from council?

It's good for us to have our kind of clear expectations because we all have different ways that we like to be communicated.

Absolutely.

Um, but I think it's also we're gonna really need the curly and you and staff to give us realistic expectations, right?

Because some of us might be like, I expect right now, I want this right immediately right now, but I don't know what's realistic on those.

And so I think kind of as we're I imagine as you're kind of fleshing out the sort of like crosswalk of like especially the crisis communications example, right?

Like what's a realistic expectation?

Um, you know, when we talked about when media interviews happen and we talk about, you know, if it's something related to police department, you know, a realistic expect expectation is there is no normal timeline for an investigation.

So I think kind of like under, you know, especially for us, it helps us ground set.

And so maybe we can kind of make that part of the May retreat the conversation to kind of like you know, we can all kind of flush out like where we think what we would like to see is realistic expectations and actually like kind of like touch point with y'all to see if that's a realistic expectation.

Like I I hope I would get information in this amount of timeline, or here's what you can expect from me or the council.

So I think it would be good, it'd be a good exercise for us as we as we flesh that out.

I agree 100%.

I think that was one of our goals is to come kind of reset at the uh the council council staff to kind of talk about some of these things.

Okay, okay.

Did that answer your question, Betsy?

Yes, yes, yeah.

Other questions for Sydney or DeCarlin around this.

Yeah, I guess I have another question then.

Um I do call though 874 city number frequently.

Um, and the first thing I get is the minute I we're not the utility department.

Is there some way we could say push one if you want to talk to you?

Stephanie's coming up for a microphone.

We're just talking about it because I get to hear that like at least once a week.

I never got around to emailing anybody.

Okay, so I'm working with our IT department now to uh test a call tree for 874 city.

So we do have that in the works because we've heard feedback from the citizens about how long that greeting message is um to notify folks.

So right now, the the way the system is set up, um, if you transfer a call, it stops the call recording, and we have certain divisions that need the calls to be recorded, so the contact center calls are recorded, which is the 874 city, and as well as utility customer service.

So if someone calls utility customer service and they call the city, the main city line, we can't transfer them over because it stops the recording, and so our system doesn't allow that uh that recording to continue, so we have to tell them to hang up and dial into utility customer service, which that's just bad customer service practice, really, but it's the same city departments.

Uh so we are looking into adding that call tree.

Like when um soon as we test it, uh they can implement it within a few days, so we could have it as soon as a week or two, because it's just a matter of changing a setting on our phone system.

They're working on it, they're working on it.

Well, yeah, I mean, but I we've heard this for like a year, not from you, but I mean the utility thing for you, I can't remember.

Oh, about the recording.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, so so that we our phone system is limited, it won't it will not allow us to continue to record after a call is that, but the call tree will allow someone to choose a selection for you.

So if they're calling for either utility bill, um, if they call the main line, it'll tell them dial to for utility customer service, and then once that takes them into that queue, it continues to it will record.

Okay, it's a new call to the queue.

And then how often do we update the voicemail thing?

Because two weeks after the president's day thing, I happened to call on a Friday, and I was told that the city was open on president's day, and the and the trash would be picked up on the on the regular time frame, and it was like two weeks later.

Okay, yeah, we could update that in real time.

Sometimes that might be missed putting that update on there, but we so there isn't somebody who regularly does that, yes.

And so it may have been missed in the the work order queue to get that changed over, but we can get that change.

It's changed now.

Yeah.

I was just curious if there was anybody who was responsible for that.

Apparently not.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thanks.

I was just gonna follow up to technical.

So you were testing and now how long does the testing process take to test out the phone tree?

Only about less than a day, because we just gotta play around with some calls and make sure it's going where it needs to go.

Um, and is understandable and comprehensive also to whoever's listening to it because we change the uh call greeting on each uh queue.

And so as long as the phone's going or the calls going where it needs to go, if they select that, then we'll get to implement that.

Awesome.

I'm just gonna have a more question for Stephanie while she's right here.

So Stephanie, with the contact center, um, do you envision like an opportunity for kind of like that?

Um I think there's one that was kind of like surveying.

No, you don't have to go to it, it's fair, but kind of like serving, like you could see that the contact center could like kind of like level up and start surveying the other departments to be like what are some big initial like how often do you have to change your script, right?

For a call center so that they're ready for um an incident, a project or something coming in.

Like, do you envision that there's a little bit more opportunities that to the to remind them to use the contact center for in case anyone calls with a question?

Yes, uh, so doing more marketing about the the city number and how they can't connect with us and get that information.

Also, uh we establish regular meetings with the uh information officers in the department.

We have a Liz liaison program with our CSR, so they might be assigned to a new department.

We've gotten a new CSR, so we have to redo our acronym, but I know it.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Uh the customer service representatives in the contact center, uh, so that they can work with the communicators in the department.

So if there's new initiatives, new things uh happening.

So, for example, we have the communicator in public work, see attends our staff meetings every month to give us an update on what's going on, what's coming up, what street closures are happening so that we have that information ready.

Awesome.

Does it do you in your script?

Do you also have the answers to questions that are outside of our control, like Modot?

We do, yes.

Yes, because we we regularly get those calls for MoDOT maintained streets, and so we do have a scripting for that.

Uh, we do utilize our website so that we have that real time information uh as part of our knowledge base.

Uh, but yeah, we do have direct scripts in our systems.

I'm just imagining the improved by 70 project, we're probably gonna be getting lots of calls on, even though again outside of our control.

Yeah, done.

A little bit in the weeds, but or outside of a complaint about a customer service interaction.

Are calls randomly screened just so you can listen in and say good, better could have been better.

Yes, we provide a scorecard for the customer service representatives uh monthly, and so we the uh supervisor randomly pulls calls throughout the month, and we I have set a time frame so we're looking at Mondays and Fridays, and then in between.

So we're looking at kind of our high points, high volume call times as well as the low volume call times to see if not only does the quality change but also the sediment of the call, and then also the quality of the call taker's tone and the word usage and things like that.

So produce a scorecard.

Yeah, um, yeah, I did oh um I'm frequently transferred somewhere else, you know, to a voicemail somewhere somewhere, and never get a call back.

Um, is there any way that the call center tracks that or anybody tracks that?

I mean, it just sort of disappears into the ethos, and I leave my information or my question and a callback number and don't hear from city staff.

And I don't know whether you guys have anything to do with that or whether it just should be a general complaint to the city manager, but really when somebody calls and has a question or needs some information, it was not really the contact center, but it's public works or it's community development.

If it's a request that's put through our system, we do track the the timing and the progress of that specific work order or that specific request, but if it's transferred, we just re-uh track how many times we transfer a call, but once it goes to that department, it's up to the department to make sure they're responding back to the person.

Yeah, so if there's something that like that occurs, make us aware of it so then we can go because we can know when the call came in.

We know when it was transferred and who it's transferred to, and so if there's no follow-up, then we can follow up behind that and say, Hey, there's an issue here.

Okay, and somebody's dropping back these calls.

This is more than once, but especially the public hearing signs when you call to ask about a public hearing for something, you never hear back.

They're on vacation.

Any other questions for Sydney or DeCarlin on this subject?

And then we're also going to be having a work session related to engagement.

It sounds like do you have a date for that?

Stacy, we have a I know we have a 10 minute.

We just have 10 days.

So we'll try to get that one official out.

Okay.

Okay.

But at least part of this conversation will be part of the May.

Yes.

So we will go over the engagement guideline.

I think Sean has some questions about engagement that she'd like to really get some ideas from council on exactly what we're doing and what it's what the council desires.

So that's it works.

Awesome.

Anything else on this?

All right.

Well, I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion uh that the city council of the city of Columbia, Missouri to immediately go into a closed meeting here in conference room 1A, 1B of City Hall.