A new year has begun and with it the annual task of taking stock of your new year’s resolutions, or goals, if you prefer. This time also marks the slower season for the northern half of the continent, where one call ticket management and 811 Call Before You Dig activities drop with the temperature. The slower pace gives us a chance to re-evaluate how we are managing requests and damage prevention programs.
If you are managing damage prevention for underground utilities, here are a few good questions to ask yourself:
How is your ticket management system integrated with contract locators and/or dispatching to internal locators?
Can you view your facility maps in relation to the dig site without running multiple apps?
Does your current solution have ways to manage workloads to ensure on-time performance?
Are you able to use auto-screening and close tickets where your facilities are not affected in order to reduce cost and save time?
Does your current ticket management solution allow you to automate procedures which are currently done manually?
Is your current ticket management solution helping you maintain compliance with dig laws?
Is your ticketing solution working well with the call center software changes and upgrades?
Maybe you don’t have a ticket management system at all, or you’ve built one internally. In that case, you’ll need to ask yourself a different set of questions:
Can your existing system automate ticket management? If not, how much time can your team save with automated processes?
Are you able to consistently meet the proper notice times, service level agreements, and ensure customer satisfaction with your existing solution?
Does your current process or solution support rules-based routing to speed up handling and resolution?
Can you currently integrate manifest tools and sketching tools, GIS maps, Google maps, etc. with your existing system or processes to make locating easier and faster?
Does your existing system or process allow you to integrate with multiple 811 call centers to facilitate growth?
Can your existing ticketing system scale up to meet an increased ticket volume and ever-evolving needs?
Is your current ticket management solution equipped to send positive response to the call center?
Can your current solution send automatic notifications to excavators throughout the locating process?
It may be time to make a resolution that it’s easy to keep by finding a 811 ticket management solution that helps improve your team’s performance, speeds up handling and resolution, improves damage protection programs, and makes locating easier. Happy New Year!
BOSS Solutions is a proud partner in damage prevention.
About the Author:
Kristin Reed is a Senior Support Engineer with BOSS Solutions. Kristin has been part of the damage prevention industry for 11 years. She is committed to helping utilities and locators protect their facilities and keeping excavators safe at the dig site.