NYC 311 hypes Skype, barely supports it

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced (video Skyping in from City Hall) five technology initiatives last week at the Personal Democracy Forum Conference. In one of the initiatives, The City's 311 non-emergency service gets a Skype account. From the news release: "Through Skype – a software application that enables calls to be made over the Internet – people from around the world will be able to call 311 for free." A little press for Skype, a little co-branding for His Honor.

They've registered the NYC311 account (Skype names must now start with a letter and passwords must be strong). When I called the account with Skype, my call was forwarded to the 311 call center.

Sadly, there's not much substance behind the claim.

• Nobody will answer if you befriend that account in Skype.
• Nobody will answer if you chat with that account in Skype. 311 doesn't serve citizens through IM.
• Nobody will receive files you send through Skype.
• There aren't any links to Skype on NYC.gov.
• Because nobody is running a Skype client with the NYC311 account, NYC shows as offline (meaning don't bother calling). 

With this NYC311  link, I've just climbed higher up the Site Skypification Maturity Model than the City of New York.  

Here's what I mean.

Skype Journal Site Skypification Maturity Model

Level 0: None
What's Skype?

Level 1: Static
Storing Skype names and Skype-linking Phone Numbers

Storing and linking people’s Skype names is one part. The other is to offer SkypeOut links for PSTN phone numbers.

Tech: Skype’s “skype:” html protocol to launch Skype from a browser link.

Level 2: Dynamic
Integrating Skype Presence

Is this person available for a call now? You can show a person’s Skype presence in a web page.

You can also use presence information to inform other site behavior. For example, you might aggregate presence data for a team to create collective presence scores.

Tech: Polling Skype’s web presence services

Level 3: Peering
Syncing Skype Profile, Social Graph, and History Data

Skype clients are information rich. You can use that data to enrich profiles, enhance your site’s social graph (who knows whom, how, and how they interact), collect communication histories (who talked to whom, when, for how long), and import chat archives.

You can keep your site's data synced with Skype's by refreshing active connections with your Skype client.

Tech: Using Skype’s client APIs to log in on behalf of a user. With that access you can both read and write to the client, and trigger conversations. At large scale, you will need to operate a Skype client farm.

Level 4: Transactional
Integrating Skype Business/Commerce Services

Skype offers some access to its payment services. PamFax is an example of this, where customers pay with Skype credits for sent faxes.

Tech: Skype publishing and DRM client and web service APIs.

The nyc311 Skype profile,
without avatar.

Call center services like OnState build in much of that functionality at no extra cost.

Skype looks like an alternate phone number, as far as New York's 311 service is concerned. Old school telephony without any Web 2.0 sophistication, effort, or benefits.

Skypeland hasn't noticed. "Over the past four days we’ve spent about $1 in total for call forwarding, including the cost incurred for multiple test calls" said a DoITT spokesperson. That's about 15 minutes of calls per day. Including my eleven and a half minutes getting referred to DoITT for questions.  

311 is an amazing step forward in eGovernment. 18 million calls come in each year (and growing) and caller satisfaction rates are high. 311 resolves 4 out of 5 calls without a transfer. They make it easier for citizens to put their city government to work on problems large and small.

I'm an émigré from New York, formerly of the 50th Street Station neighborhood, now gentrified beyond recognition. I'm always pleased to see the City breathe in new ideas and chew on them. Let's check in a year from now and see if skype:nyc311 earns traction.

See also:

• LotusLive: Level 1 on the Skype Journal Site Skypification Maturity Model, January 2009
• 37 Signals starts climbing the Skype Journal Site Skypification Maturity Model, November 2007
• Seeking a Level Four Skype Interconnection, October 2006

tags: skype, new york, newyork, nyc, 311, nyc311, 311nyc, customer service, callcenter, help desk

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.