Want to have a mobile moan? SMS 31373

In one of the most innovative adaptations of SMS text messaging to date, Mayor Helen Zille and the City of Cape Town have launched a SMS service allowing residents to text their complaints on water-related issues directly to the city’s call centre.

Not only will this relieve pressure on the call centre, which apparently deals with up to 40 000 water-related complaints a month, it will also relieve the pressure of an angry population tired of waiting in phone queues for hours for nothing to happen re their complaints. Unfortunately this SMS service cannot be used for account queries – so you still need to pay those high estimated bills and hope that the city sends around someone who will take the trouble to find the meter and rectify the problem speedily!

The citizens of Cape Town complain to the city about 22 500 times a week on a range of issues from streetlights burning in the day and potholes in the road to water-related issues such as pipes bursting, blocked sewers and leaking or faulty water meters. Call centre costs are increasing all over the world and many companies are turning to SMS services and text messaging as a more affordable and effective means of communication with customers. The advantage of SMS text messaging is that it allows for a fast response rate which means happier customers!

As Zille said at the launch of the SMS service, “All this technology applied to service delivery is something that really gives me a kick.” She is planning to roll this SMS service out for other municipal services such as electricity distribution, pothole notification and waste removal.

To lodge your water-related complaint with the city’s SMS service, send a SMS to 31373 with your name, erf or account number, street address and a brief description of the fault – you will need to squash all of this into 160 characters. From there officials will log the complaint and take action. You should receive a reference number for the complaint that you have lodged. The cost per SMS to the short code number is only 80 cents; and considering that you will have saved yourself hours of phone time, it is extremely affordable.

How the system works is that the SMS text message is received by the City in the form of an email which is then logged onto the C3 notification system and dispatched to the relevant team for action. SMS text messaging is being used across a wide range of industries with spectacular effect. Besides the affordable nature of this messaging tool, it is immediate and easily integrated into other systems – you can set up an ‘email to SMS’ system to keep in touch with staff out of the office and you can co-ordinate bulk SMS messages to be sent according to trigger words allowing for quick and orchestrated responses from emergency teams for example. The possibilities are endless – for more information on how SMS messaging can be used in call centres, download Clickatell’s White Paper on the subject.

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