El Paso 311 Contact Center Transitions to DATAMARK
How can a company successfully transition Contact Center operations from one service provider to another within 30 days? El Paso 311 challenges DATAMARK to operate, manage, and staff its contact center while performing a seamless transition from the previous service provider.
Background: El Paso 311 Transitions to a New Contact Center Company
El Paso 311, or EP311, is the City of El Paso’s 311 program. It is a non-emergency hotline that enables the 685,000 citizens of the City of El Paso to report problems, ask questions, and get information about the community. Callers to El Paso 311 for non-emergencies avoid tying up emergency hotlines or going through frustrating municipal channels. Once you log your request or question, the 311 customer service team can schedule tasks or provide information for more than 20 city departments.
Challenge: Provide a Solution to Take Over Operations for El Paso 311 Contact Center in 30 Days
The City of El Paso awarded DATAMARK a three-year contract to operate, manage, and staff El Paso’s 311 Contact Center. To take over, DATAMARK had to seamlessly transition from the previous service provider and staff the contact center with about 40 employees, all within 30 days. Easy, right?
Assuming the operation of the City of El Paso 311 Contact Center within 30 days is no easy feat. DATAMARK experts had to come up with a plan quickly.
Solution: A “Rebadging” Transition to Staff the El Paso 311 Contact Center
To quickly transition from the previous service provider, DATAMARK had to address two items. First, they had to staff the Contact Center with 40 people proficient in handling a wide array of resident requests for information and services. Second, they sought opportunities to improve the operations of the previous Contact Center.
Hiring Quality Contact Center Staff in a Short Period of Time
It would be incredibly difficult to hire and train more than 40 new managers and agents to properly staff El Paso 311 within 30 days. DATAMARK proposes a creative approach to solve this staffing problem. They would create a structured plan to rehire as many of the outgoing service provider’s Contact Center supervisors and staff as possible. This would allow them to retain experienced subject matter experts (SMEs) and agents. In doing so, they could maintain service continuity and high-quality customer care.
Improve Quality of Operations from one Contact Center to Another
Now, for the second issue, DATAMARK would have to do some research to seek out opportunities to improve working conditions and employee satisfaction. They assembled a team of Contact Center experts, including business engineers, project managers, and transition managers. Then, they analyzed the transition, determining what would need to be done in order to deliver operational excellence while improving working conditions and employee satisfaction. They also sought ways to improve contact center data collection, reporting, and analysis.
The Basic Elements of DATAMARK’s Contact Center Transition Strategy Include:
The Results: A Seamless Transition and Continuous Improvement of Contact Center Operations
DATAMARK successfully took over operations of the 311 Contact Center within the 30-day time frame required by the City of El Paso. The transition took place without any significant drop in service levels during the changeover. Transition managers delivered continued updates to city departments that rely on the 311 Contact Center for customer service. DATAMARK developed an easy-to-understand dashboard of metrics and key performance indicators to share with city managers overseeing operations.
DATAMARK project managers were responsible for overseeing every step of the transition, identifying tasks that must be completed. They assigned responsibilities and deadlines for each task and kept every affected stakeholder advised of transition progress with timely and transparent communication.
During the transition, employee satisfaction areas were even improved. For example, DATAMARK improved pay scales for experienced employees and investigated ways to improve the staff parking policy.
DATAMARK took this opportunity to introduce and share its corporate culture and values with stakeholders.
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FAQs About the El Paso 311 Contact Center Transition
A contact center transition plan should include a structured staffing strategy, ideally rehiring experienced incumbent staff rather than starting recruitment from zero, a clear division of responsibilities and deadlines for every transition task, and regular, transparent updates to every affected stakeholder throughout the changeover. Employee satisfaction factors, pay, working conditions, and benefits are worth addressing early, since a transition is also a chance to fix problems the incumbent never solved. DATAMARK’s El Paso 311 transition plan covered all of these, moving the city’s 311 service to a new vendor in 30 days without a significant service-level drop.
Cities outsource 311 non-emergency call centers mainly to control costs and access specialized workforce management expertise without building it internally. Recruiting, training, and managing a large bilingual staff is expensive and takes dedicated expertise most city departments aren’t set up to provide day-to-day. An experienced 311 provider brings refined hiring and training processes built specifically for high-volume, multilingual citizen service. El Paso’s 311 program serves 685,000 residents across more than 20 city departments, a scale that benefits from a partner already built for it.
A 311 non-emergency contact center handles resident requests, questions, and information for city services that don’t require an emergency response, freeing up 911 lines for genuine emergencies. El Paso 311 routes requests across more than 20 city departments, covering everything from reporting a pothole to asking about a permit. Calls are typically handled in the resident’s preferred language, English or Spanish in El Paso’s case, and logged so departments can track and schedule the underlying task rather than losing it in a phone call.
The main risk when switching 311 contact center providers is a service gap during the handoff, since residents still need to reach the city every day while the transition happens. Losing experienced staff and institutional knowledge of departmental processes is a related risk, since a new team starting from zero takes longer to reach full competency. A structured transition plan that rehires experienced staff where possible and assigns clear ownership for each transition task reduces both risks. DATAMARK’s El Paso 311 transition was completed in 30 days without a significant drop in service levels.
Staffing a 311 call center for a city the size of El Paso, with roughly 685,000 residents, required about 40 employees across agent and supervisory roles. The right number depends on call volume, language requirements, and how many city departments the program routes requests to; more departments generally means more specialized knowledge agents need to maintain. El Paso 311 handles requests in English and Spanish across more than 20 departments, which shaped both the staffing level and the training required for agents to work efficiently.