New digital modernizations and a refreshed website are coming soon to Alex311, Alexandria’s customer service program.
Alex311 staff gave a presentation on the forthcoming redesign during last night’s City Council legislative meeting (Tuesday). The updates call for investment in tools like chatbots and virtual agents with multilingual capabilities.
“Modernizing our digital tools is central to our future work,” said Tenesia Wells, deputy director of the Department of Emergency and Customer Communications. “We’re particularly excited about the updated Alex 311, site, which we are calling ‘the gateway to more.'”
The updates come as Alex311 reported a total of 39,245 requests sent so far in 2025 — the program’s highest request count in five years. Of these requests, 90% were completed within the city’s “service resolution timeframe” for the second year in a row, a figure that’s steadily risen from 72% in 2021.
Before this year, request totals hovered between 30,000 and 31,900 in 2021 and 2022 before rising to slightly over 35,000 in 2023 and 2024, totaling some 172,565 total requests since 2021.
“This tells us that we may have alternating slow and rapid periods of activities, suggesting cyclical growth rather than consistent year-over-year increases,” according to last night’s presentation.
Almost four in 10 residents reported using Alex311 before, “with a heavier concentration on the east end of the city.”
The program has participated in 24 outreach events since 2023. Staff intend to participate in more targeted outreach and engagement alongside other departments and partner agencies, such as the Alexandria Health Department’s Healthy Homes Initiative.
“These sessions will help us make meaningful changes to the request categories and place us in the room with residents who may not even be aware of Alex311,” Wells said.
Councilman John Chapman said he is “very interested in seeing how AI could be integrated into the work that we do.”
“What does that look like?” Chapman said. “What barriers? We were talking to one vendor and they said, ‘hey, you’ve got some internal conversations that you’re having, or need to have, before you kind of step into some of these spaces.”
Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley pondered if there was a way to flag and address requests from residents in Alexandria, La.
“The Louisiana ones always trip me up, because I get it, and I read their problem, and I’m like, ‘What? Like, I don’t understand. Where is this?'” she said.
Bagley also said she is interested in finding ways to “better balance” the program’s high participation in the city’s east end.
Councilman Canek Aguirre ended the discussion with some positive Alex311 feedback he received from a resident via text message Tuesday morning.
“Excellent 311 response,” wrote the resident, whose car was blocked by an infrastructure project. “A city employee just called me from my street, looking into the situation and agreeing the residents should have been notified and is working on my issue.”
“Just wanted to end on a happy note with that one,” Aguirre said.
