THOMAS BECNEL, Sarasota Herald Tribune (Florida)

SARASOTA COUNTY: Phone bank set up in hurricane year still fielding questions

One caller wanted to know what day of the week it was.

Another guy needed to know how to spell “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

And one lady was curious about water restrictions.

“If I don’t take a bath for five days,” she asked, “can I water my yard for 10 minutes?”

These are some of the wackier questions posed to operators at Sarasota County’s Call Center. After seven years and more than a million requests for information, there were bound to be a few crank calls to 861-5000.

Most people, though, just want help with county services.

They want to ask about Sarasota County Area Transit bus schedules. They want to ask about library hours. They want to ask about their neighbor’s code violations.

A dozen Sarasota operators know the answers to most questions by heart. For more obscure requests, they turn to their computers and the CCKB — “Call Center Knowledge Base” — which offers a wealth of information about county departments and services.

Dan Zumbro, a 57-year-old Call Center veteran, is considered one of the best at turning angry taxpayers into satisfied customers. He’s not a smooth talker, which might be the secret to his success. Zumbro sounds like what he is — a retired dock worker from Detroit.

He has a way of saying, “You know what, let me help you with that,” which makes people feel like he’s on their side.

“That’s what makes it work,” Zumbro says. “If you sound like you’re reading from a script, you can almost hear the sigh at the other end of the line.”

Going to 311

In 2004, the year of hurricanes — Charley, Ivan, Jeanne and Frances — Sarasota County set up the Call Center. There were more than 30,000 requests for information related to those storms.

“It was so successful,” says Bob Stuckey, general manager of public safety communications, “that we said, ‘Let’s keep it going.'”

Calling a single number was simple for users. And having a central line made life easier for county departments, which didn’t have to answer so many calls and complaints.

Operators aren’t just intermediaries. They often handle calls themselves. This includes placing work orders to fix potholes and signing people up for park events.

The Call Center takes anywhere from 800 to 1,200 calls a day. Mondays and Fridays are the busiest. Around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. are the busiest times.

In the next year or so, when the county installs a new telephone system, the Call Center should be able to receive and reply to text messages.

Eventually, the Call Center will move to a new Emergency Operations Center on Cattlemen Road near Interstate 75. Eventually, 861-5000 will change to the 311 information number that many cities and counties use.

From the fourth floor

For now, the Call Center works out of the fourth floor of the Sarasota County Administration Building on Ringling Boulevard.

It’s a gray office space, 1,700 square feet, with maroon cubicles and a single window facing south from downtown. Next to the entrance is a small kitchen with a refrigerator, microwave oven and a small table.

Next to the fridge is a half-deflated birthday party balloon from last month. It’s become sort of a running joke, so no one throws it away.

On the opposite end of the office, facing the far wall, is the cubicle of Betty Baez. She doesn’t mind having what looks like the least desirable desk in the place.

“I’m the shy one in the group,” she says. “I like my little corner.”

Baez, 39, often stands to work, taking calls on a telephone headset. “I get fidgety,” she says. She decorates her desk with Betty Boop posters. She sips Diet Dr. Pepper.

As the only Spanish-speaking operator in the Call Center, Baez takes requests for information from Sarasota’s growing Hispanic population.

“Most of them could probably get by in English,” she says. “But they’re more comfortable talking to someone in their own language.”

Next to Baez is Martin Haire, 49, a former press spokesman who worked as a producer at local radio and TV stations. He wears colorful Hawaiian shirts and keeps a plastic palm tree in his cubicle.

A few weeks ago, Haire took a call from a sight-impaired woman who couldn’t find her bus on Fruitville Road. She could hear buses coming and going, but knew they weren’t the right one. Haire added a SCAT supervisor to the call and they were able to alert a driver and find her beside the road.

“It’s a fun gig,” he says, looking over the Call Center. “You get to help 85 or 100 people a day. When I walk out of the door at 5, I’m done.”

Elderly calls

Linda Smith, 60, is the Call Center manager. She takes calls, too, from her cubicle next to the entrance. And she keeps snack jars around the office filled with such nibbles as pretzels and mints.

Sarasota County hires an outside agency to make test calls and grade operators on their answers. At the end of each call, they’re supposed to ask if there’s anything else they can do.

Smith says a lot of callers make the same joke: “Yeah, can you give me the winning lottery numbers for next week?”

Zumbro, who’s been at the Call Center for seven years, thinks callers have become more short-tempered in recent years. He thinks it’s the poor economy.

When he takes a call from an elderly person — and there are lots of those — Zumbro thinks about his mother.

He helped care for her after his father died. He remembers her struggling through phone conversations with all sorts of companies and agencies.

That’s when he tries to do more than just answer questions. That’s when he tries to understand problems and find solutions.

“That’s when you go home feeling good,” he says. “That, in a nutshell, makes it all worthwhile.”

Dan Zumbro is among a dozen operators answering requests for information at the Sarasota County Call Center. Fielding questions about anything from bus schedules to the bizarre, call-takers have answered more than a million requests in the last seven years from their fourth-floor operation center inside the Sarasota County Administration Building.

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