City’s 311 call centre sees spike in calls in first half of 2021

For the first two quarters of 2020 and 2021, Ottawa’s 311 call centre saw an increase in daily calls compared to last year — and that sometimes meant waiting almost an hour to get through to an agent.

The latest in 311 call centre data, from January 1 to July 6, will be presented at Wednesday’s city council meeting. It shows that the average wait time on weekdays was two minutes and seven seconds, and one minute and 22 seconds on weekends.

(When wait times exceed two minutes, the courtesy callback feature is activated and offered repeatedly while callers wait in queue.)

On average, there were 1,979 incoming calls on weekdays (an increase of about 212 weekday calls) and 523 on weekends (a decrease of nine daily weekend calls).

According to the report, the council-approved 311 service level target is that callers have their call answered under 120 seconds, 80 per cent of the time.

The combined weekday and weekend average wait time for the requested time periods of a.m. and p.m. for the first half of 2021 were:

• 55 seconds (between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m.)
• Two minutes and six seconds (between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m.)
• Two minutes and two seconds (between 12 p.m. and 6 p.m.)
• Two minutes and eight seconds 6 p.m. and 12 p.m.)

However, the longest wait time for a 311 call during a weekday in 2021 was recorded on Thursday, April 8 between 5:30 p.m. and 5:45 p.m., with a wait time of 53:56. April 8 was the day the Ontario government issued a province-wide stay-at-home order requiring residents to stay home for non-essential reasons, which prompted calls for questions and complaints, the report says.

The longest wait time during a weekend was experience on Saturday, April between 7:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m., with a wait time of 40:45 minutes. This was the day Ontario entered a province-wide shutdown and reinstated strict measures in Ottawa, also prompting questions and complaints.