Officially open this week, the new online service offered at www.utah.gov is the first of its kind in the country, said the state's chief information officer Val Oveson. In development for 10 months, the service also educates the state's employees, who are having to get a quick tutorial about the appropriate place to refer inquiries.
The link on the state Web site is in the upper right-hand corner of the screen titled, "24/7 Live Help."
Oveson chats nightly with Utah residents, sending immediate links to different agencies depending on the questions.
A lot of the visitors, so far, are computer users in "E-government" or multimedia disciplines curious about the new service, he said.
"It's generated a lot of interest from government watchers as well," Oveson said.
Gov. Mike Leavitt hopped on the service anonymously last week to test it out, as did his spokeswoman Natalie Gochnour.
The result?
"It worked," she said. "I got the help I needed."
The online service will ultimately involve customer service representatives from every state agency.
The service is accompanied by other new features on the freshly redesigned state Web site, including citizen polls that will change frequently and provide immediate results.
As an example, Wednesday's poll question asked participants if they knew the identity of their state senator.
By early afternoon, 137 had said yes, 64 indicated no and four had no answer.
The state's network managers for the Web site, Utah Interactive, said the online chat service grew out of feedback from focus groups.
Quelle: The Salt Lake Tribune
