SAN ANTONIO — Thousands of calls come into the San Antonio’s non-emergency information line, 311, each week. That makes it sometimes difficult get your call picked up. Here is how to get through to get your questions answered quickly.
“It has been very, very busy,” said Paula Stallcup, 311’s director of customer service. “It’s definitely a constant ring.”
Yet, Stallcup said she wants the calls to keep coming.
“I want us to be the first place people call,” she said. “You’re not even maybe sure exactly what kind of help is out there. We can let them know what kinds of services and city programs are available.”
The 311 call center looked empty, but like a lot of us, customer service representatives are working from home.
“We are averaging anywhere on a weekly basis between 14 to 17 thousand calls and that’s actually about 35 percent increase of where we’d normally be,” Stallcup said.
All those calls often means you will most likely hear “please hold for the next available representative” when you call.
“About a three minute wait time,” Stallcup said. It is the average amount of time people spend waiting for their call to be answered.
If you want to get through more quickly here is what to do:
“Don’t call on Monday because Monday is our busiest day and it’s pretty much all day,” Stallcup said. “People don’t actually realize that we’re open weekends, right. So they’re like, oh, I’ll call on Monday. I’ll call on Monday. Give us a call Sunday. You don’t have to hardly wait at all.”
Lunchtime is also a bad time to call any day of the week.
Maybe let your fingers do the work in a different way to reach 311.
“People can also email us,” Stallcup said. “You know, sometimes it’s easier for you to email a quick question and we encourage that. That email box is monitored seven days a week.”
That email address is 311customerservice@sanantonio.gov.
Or download the free 311AS app to your phone. It will not allow you to speak directly with someone but you make service requests with it.
The 311 service is offered in English and Spanish, but other languages are also available.
“We need to be able to accommodate them, if folks speak other languages,” Stallcup said. “They just need to let us know that.”
311 has added staff and extended hours. It is now taking calls from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven day a week.