Optimized contact centers reduce City of Mesa maintenance costs by 40%

The Organization 

Located in in the southeast part of the Phoenix metro area, Mesa is a city on the move. For years, Mesa has been one of the fastest growing cities in the country and is currently ranked 38th largest in the U.S. and third largest in Arizona. In fact, more than 460,000 people call Mesa home because of the community’s overall quality of life. The city provides the advantages of a thriving metropolis while maintaining a suburban feel. This unique balance makes Mesa the city of choice for professionals, families, students and industry. 

With affordable housing, superior schools, low crime rate and a multitude of recreational activities, Mesa offers a highly attractive lifestyle. Mesa is strategically located within the Greater Phoenix area, offering ready access to the employment, educational, recreational and cultural amenities of a major metropolitan area. 

Motivation for Change 

The city provides several contact centers and information phone lines for citizens to inquire about city services, including utilities and billing, court dates and fines, taxes and licensing, permits such as building or police alarms, and cultural offerings. The city’s Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution needed to be upgraded and the opportunity to standardize on one communications platform allowed for more streamlined support and reduced maintenance costs. In addition, Mesa sought improved robust communication options to keep pace with the expectations of citizens in an increasingly mobile world.. 

Desired Solution 

Mesa selected Aspect Unified IP (UIP) because the solution offers a unified contact center supporting omni-channel communications and provides a platform that supports the future functionality desired by the City. The City’s talented IT team wanted to continue with an on premise deployment as they already had a very high comfort level about the solution and in-depth understanding of how to resolve issues. Implementation included IT developers’ trainings and workshops to understand the Alvaria platform and working closely with the Alvaria team to make sure that their plan was well designed. With design complete, the Mesa IT team deployed Unified IP. Since UIP delivers omnichannel self-service functionality the Mesa IT team will be able to roll- out additional mobile and social communication mechanisms in the future. 

The Results 

The City of Mesa has successfully consolidated its contact centers and information lines on the Alvaria platform with fully integrated interaction functionality. The Mesa team completed their roll-out of 7 contact centers, including IVR for 3 of them, within 8 months. The single vendor solution resulted in a 40% reduction in maintenance costs and a single vendor contact for all support needs. The IT team now can focus on the software’s new end-user capabilities and citizen support. 

Next steps include expanding services by offering proactive SMS notifications through Alvaria CXP. The notifications will inform residents that utility bills and court fines are due or that delinquent fees need to be paid which the city anticipates will help improve collections. Mesa also plans to deploy Skype for business queuing and web chat. With improved service and new options, the use of this platform is expected to expand to new department services.