Challenge: The Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) is an extremely busy state agency that served 2.7 million customers and processed 15 million transactions in FY 2020. Inbound calls from Arizona taxpayers run in the thousands each day. Making sure these calls are quickly routed to the office best capable of handling the customers’ needs is an important task. This first-level call center has always been a challenge with very high turnover rates.

Solution: Working with the Labor Partnership team and the facilities managers at the ASPC Perryville complex, an inbound call center operation was built where inmate crews could be trained to answer and redirect first-level calls to MVD. This successful partnership began in 2011 and currently employs 35 inmates. The inmates in the program are learning real-world customer service skills.