Gulf Shores approved a software for residents to submit city-related concerns that will alert the proper city employee or department for the request, ensuring each issue is addressed and handled efficiently.

Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft said the customer relationship management (CRM) project was something already in the works, but after feedback during the election period on a lack of communication from city officials, implementing this project was an opportunity to “solve that problem throughout the city.”

“Elections come and go, but you’ll always learn something if you’re paying attention,” he said. “One thing that was kind of universal in the comments I know I heard — I think most of us heard — that we didn’t answer their questions. They would ask a question, and we were not as responsive as we should be. We took that to heart.

At the Oct. 20 City Council work session, Blake Phelps, director of economic development and public affairs for Gulf Shores, presented a resolution for an agreement with OpenGov to implement the CRM project.

He said currently a citizen can call any department at the city, which may result in the citizen being “passed around multiple departments” trying to get to the correct person for the issue. Residents also have the option to fill out a form on the “Report a Concern” page on the city website, which often results in a similar process as concerns go to specific department channels and might be shared among several departments before it is fixed.

Councilman Jason Dyken said CRM would serve as a city accountability tool as multiple departments will be able to track responses to issues and ensure residents are helped.

“I think this system is very much needed,” he said. “We try to answer all complaints, but as we’ve grown in staffing and departments and responsibilities, sometimes, issues do get lost.”

He said he thought the project would likely present a learning curve but would ultimately prove to be a move in a good direction.

Councilman Philip Harris said on CRM, “I think this provides another channel for the public to make comments. I think another thing we heard [over the election] is not everybody has time to come to these meetings, not everybody is comfortable coming to that microphone, but here’s an opportunity from your home, from your computer to get online and log an issue or concern and hopefully we hear more than we’re hearing now.”

PREVIOUS COUNCIL ACTION

Earlier this year, City Council approved a three-year contract with OpenGov to implement enterprise asset management (EAM) for public works and recreation staff members to track work orders and activities.

By working with OpenGov to implement the CRM, resident requests will go straight to the EAM internal work order system database.

Phelps said, “So, we’ve got a seamless flow of receiving that information, receiving that question or that concern, logging it into the system, it being assigned to the correct person, then a work order actually being created and that issue being resolved through whatever action needs to be taken.”

Like the EAM agreement, the OpenGov contract for CRM will be for three years. Phelps said the city’s IT department has volunteered a little over $44,000 from their budget for the initial cost so the city can start implementing the project, rather than waiting for the next fiscal year.

He said the city will balance the budget for the next three years to pay about $30,000 per year. The total cost of the contract is $138,213.39.

According to the agenda item, the estimated implementation timeline for CRM is four to five months. The city is set to launch the product near the end of the first quarter of next year.