Case Study: City of Vancouver achieves faster citizen service with Olark Live Chat

The City of Vancouver fields 5,000+ service requests monthly with Olark live chat

The City of Vancouver’s 311 contact department handles thousands of citizen service requests each month across phone, email, and in-person channels. Looking to modernize its customer service and manage surges of questions around policies like the vacancy tax, the city piloted Olark live chat on its website to give residents another way to get help faster.

Olark quickly proved valuable for both agents and citizens, so the pilot expanded from the busiest pages to more of the city’s website. According to the city, Olark significantly affected phone volume as people used chat alongside calls, and the team relied on Olark’s reporting to track performance. The result was a successful move from trial to ongoing use, with live chat becoming a permanent part of the City of Vancouver’s service model.

City of Vancouver

Winson Tang

Team Manager