Disconnect: MetroCall 311 fails to answer thousands of calls every month

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - You dial those three numbers, 311, to report problems to Louisville Metro Government. But how often is the city picking up the phone? Records show thousands of calls for service go unanswered every month.

MetroCall supervisors say they're taking as many calls as they can. But an increasing number of people give up before they get through or get their problem fixed.

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Crevette Moore has been complaining about an overgrown property in her neighborhood for years. She says she can't get anyone to listen.

"It's frustrating for us to continuously call, and nothing gets done," Moore said.

The grass is so high, it could cause an accident, Moore insists. "I almost hit a police officer turning into the alley," she said. "He couldn't see me, and I couldn't see him."

Moore said her calls to MetroCall 311 often fall on deaf ears.

MetroCall 311 is Louisville Metro Government's customer service center, where residents can request assistance or make a complaint. Mayor Greg Fischer is quick to push MetroCall during snow emergencies and pothole blitzes.

But a WAVE 3 News Troubleshooter investigation revealed thousands of times each month people are unable to get someone to listen.

Records show in the first seven months of 2015, there were more than 169,803 calls to MetroCall. Thirty-five percent, of 60,146 of those calls, were listed as abandoned, meaning the person hung up before a MetroCall operator picked up. That's presumably because of long wait times.

The problem was worst in April when 51 percent of callers to MetroCall, one out of every two callers, gave up up before getting through.

When we called MetroCall in the middle of a Monday afternoon, it took eight minutes and 20 seconds before someone finally picked up. "We're very busy," an operator named Janet said when asked why it took so long.

MetroCall supervisor Jody Duncan said part of the difficulty is staffing. Her office has just 10 people handling 800 to 1,000 calls a day. That's not counting all the live chats, emails from the city's website and messages from the new MetroCall 311 app.

"Sometimes it is difficult, and we try to get to people as quickly as we can," Duncan said. "[Operators] work very diligently and very hard because we always say that MetroCall are the ambassadors of our community."

Duncan asked for four additional part-time workers in last year's budget, but those positions were not approved by Mayor Greg Fischer.

In a statement, the mayor's spokesman Chris Poynter wrote, "MetroCall continues to be an important customer service function of city government, but like most agencies there will never be enough resources."

Instead, the city is working on a system to automatically route service requests from the website and app directly to the proper department. That eventually will take a small amount of the load off a system that seems totally overloaded.

Duncan said once you are able to get through, it doesn't take long to route your request to the right department. But Duncan said that doesn't mean that department will be able to respond right away.

Poynter said the city also is encouraging people to tweet issues to the city to get faster service.

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