Service Excellence Committee
The full agenda, as filed
All 2 items in the clerk’s order. Each carries the city’s own words: the staff recommendation, what the body decided, and its status. Nothing below is written by us.
SE9.1received
311 Toronto - Update on Progress Related to Centralizing Tier 1 Services
This report provides an update to the Service Excellence Committee on progress regarding the centralization of routine and transactional services, identified as Tier 1 services, into 311. 311 has established a customer service model that puts customers first by connecting the public with the appropriate staff, based on the complexity of their request. Routine and transactional requests, such as providing information about City programs or supporting intake of simple service requests (e.g., reporting a pothole), are designated as Tier 1 services and are supported by 311 Customer Service Representatives. More complex matters are designated as Tier 2 services and are managed by divisional staff with specialized knowledge to address inquiries that may require consultation, be impacted by legislated requirements, or require case management (e.g., client-specific intake for Shelter Services or Human Services, inquiries related to Toronto transit discounts and childcare fee subsidies). Currently, the Customer Experience Division provides Tier 1 service support on behalf of the five Integrated Service Divisions: Transportation Services, Toronto Water, Solid Waste Management, Municipal Licensing and Standards, and Environment, Climate and Forestry-Urban Forestry. Parks will be integrated with 311 by end of September 2025. The Customer Experience Division conducted a preliminary review of City services and call centres for eligibility and readiness for integration with 311. The review found that most services, aside from services offered by Parks and Recreation, are better suited for future consideration for integration once 311 has improved its end-to-end experience and other readiness activities have taken place. Additional integrations would require foundational work by future service divisions and their partners, such as process documentation, digitization and back-end system upgrades to meet the operational standards for integration. Further, there are services that are considered Tier 2 services that are not currently considered for integration with 311 due to the complexity of their work and client needs. Based on this review, beyond Parks and Recreation, there are no integration opportunities being pursued at this time. Instead, the Customer Experience Division is focused on enhancing the end-to-end experience for existing integrated services, as well as integrating Community Recreation by late 2026. This includes improving customer communications through the Closing the Loop initiative and streamlining the self-serve experience to make service request submission faster, easier and simpler. Looking ahead, the Customer Experience Division remains committed to working collaboratively with service areas to explore future integration opportunities. As divisions advance their readiness and as 311 enhances its current service offerings, the potential for onboarding new services into 311 will be re-evaluated. This focus ensures that 311 is optimizing its existing service experience before integrating additional services.
The Service Excellence Committee received the report (August 27, 2025) from the Executive Director, Customer Experience for information.
Staff recommendation as filed
The Executive Director, Customer Experience recommends that: 1. The Service Excellence Committee receive this report for information.
SE9.2amended
Efforts to Improve End-to-End Customer Experience
This report responds to a request from the Service Excellence Committee to provide information on the history of 311, integration with divisions, and initiatives that are underway to improve the customers' end-to-end experience accessing City services through 311. 311 Toronto launched in September 2009 as the primary gateway to City information and services, centralizing numerous phone numbers and divisional contact centres into a single, easily remembered number (311). The launch connected existing and integrable divisional work management systems with the 311 customer relationship management system, automating information flow between 311 and the following five Integrated Service Divisions: Solid Waste Management Services, Transportation Services, Toronto Water, Municipal Licensing and Standards, and Environment, Climate and Forestry - Urban Forestry. This integration allows the public to open service requests to report issues or request City services via 311. Information entered in the service request is automatically forwarded to the appropriate Integrated Service Division for review and action. Upon actioning, integration also allows information and some updates from Integrated Service Divisions to be automatically shared back with 311, enabling the public to obtain updates on the status of their service request, including whether the service request has been addressed. However, information sharing is limited in some cases by legacy work management systems and business requirements, which require updates to permit the sharing of notes and status updates and/or to enable planned enhancements aimed at supporting the quality of information shared back to 311 and ultimately the public. Customers would also benefit from standardized quality notes that are available for every closed service request. A jurisdictional scan of large North American cities shows that many municipalities are enhancing their 311 operations to meet customers' expectations by standardizing processes, fostering a customer-first culture through change management, and updating technology to support these improvements. These process and technology changes require inter-divisional collaboration and accountability to ensure adoption. The Customer Experience Division, in collaboration with Technology Services Division and the Integrated Service Divisions, are working on two key initiatives: Closing the Loop: Focuses on enhancing the quality of information provided to customers and standardizing how service requests are managed across divisions; and Enterprise Work Management Solution: Replacing legacy work management systems with modern platforms that provide the technical foundation to support these improvements. These initiatives complement additional improvements that have been made since the launch of 311 to enhance the customer experience, including the expansion of multi-lingual and multi-channel support and proactive customer communication options (e.g. language support for live telephone translation services, introduction of an interactive voice response to route customers to appropriate staff support based on their selection). Additionally, 311 will be providing intake services for Parks and Community Recreation, with integration planned by the end of September 2025 and end of 2026, respectively.
The Service Excellence Committee recommends that: 1. The Executive Committee request the Executive Director, Customer Experience (311), the General Manager, Parks and Recreation, the General Manager, Toronto Water, the General Manager, Transportation Services, the General Manager, Solid Waste Management Services, the Executive Director, Municipal Licensing and Standards, and the Executive Director, Environment, Climate and Forestry, to report back to the Service Excellence Committee by the second quarter of 2026 with a proposed plan and phased approach to simplify the 311 service intake process, starting with Parks Operations, by streamlining public-facing service categories and consolidating service codes where appropriate.
Staff recommendation as filed
The Chief Technology Officer and the Executive Director, Customer Experience recommend that: 1. The Service Excellence Committee receive this report for information.