Customer
Profile
 City
& County of Denver Uses Address Verification Tool
The City & County of Denver is preparing to announce
their new 311 Call Center in a few months. The
system is designed to accept non-emergency calls and
make city services easily accessible to its
constituents.
With that in mind, the governmental entity decided
to use the Melissa Data products for its Address
Object and GeoCoder Object tools.
Address Object is powered by a CASS Certified™
address verification engine and meets the strictest
USPS specifications for address accuracy and ZIP +
4® codes. Address Object verifies and cleans up
Denver’s database of inaccurate, incomplete and
undeliverable addresses at the point of entry.
GeoCoder Object pinpoints locations with longitude
and latitude, as well as appends Census tract, block
numbers and county name. In Denver’s case, the
GeoCoder Object helps locate the caller’s address
and service delivery address.
Denver’s 311 Call Center handles a variety of call
types which range from informational questions to
service requests. Constituents that dial 311 can for
example, can report a pothole, or a loose animal or
a disabled vehicle. The phone attendant would first
verify the address where the resident is calling
from and the address where the service is being
requested for. Then, the phone attendant would
direct the caller to the appropriate city service or
adjacent jurisdiction. The 311 system utilizes the
PeopleSoft CRM and accessed DenverGIS’ address web
service that leverages the city’s existing address
database for ‘in-city’ addresses and the Address
Object for ‘out-of-city’ addresses.
David Luhan, the GIS Manager for the City of
Denver’s Geographic Information Systems (DenverGIS),
says “address accuracy is vital for the effective
delivery of information and city services. Using the
Address Object enables us to ‘extend’ our current
address web service beyond Denver and provides an
accurate method to determine where call volume is
coming from. Over 90 percent of the city’s business
requires a valid address so it’s essential to
accurately pinpoint a caller’s location to provide
them with the correct information and city service
to fulfill their needs.”
Currently the city’s 311 call center receives more
than 400 calls a day. In the past, before the 311
phone system was implemented, local residents had to
refer to the city’s BluePages to find out more
information on city services. This process was not
as convenient to Denver’s constituents as simply
dialing 3-1-1 to get the information they need.
After almost a year of production implementation,
Luhan is very pleased with the data and services
Melissa Data provides. “After extensive research and
evaluations we found this product to be most
affordable and the easiest to implement” he notes.
|
|
|
