Shifting Calls to Clicks

By Mike Sullivan - President - Utility Safety Partners

The ability to communicate with one another has evolved considerably over the last two decades but the desire to get our point across, whether we were sending smoke signals across mountain ranges or messages by carrier pigeon across greater distances, has always been there. 

Change is constant. If you can accept, move, and adapt to change, you’ll be fine. If not, you’re likely to find yourself in a lonely world defending the past as progress and process pass by. For decades, damage prevention organizations have promoted Call Before You Dig! and the result was brick and mortar one-call centres staffed row upon row with call centre agents amid a hum of activity. Monday mornings in a one-call centre during the digging season were mayhem with diligent diggers often waiting an hour or more to reach an agent so they could place a locate request.  

Fax machines appeared in the 1980s, displacing some of the call-ins, but they were clunky and never made a lasting dent in call centre operations. 

Then, in the 1990s, the world wide web emerged significantly enhancing the speed of communication. I can vividly recall when I received my first email address and instantly able to communicate with contacts across the country. It was astonishing! When Portable Document Format (PDF) documents emerged, files that couldn’t previously be transmitted were easily shared and printed. And it was around this time, the mid-to-late 1990s, when one-call centres began accepting web-based locate requests. Back then, however, locate request software couldn’t do what it does today, and call centre agents still had to “process” web tickets. The phones no longer rang as much but the call centre was still humming.

Soon, software would emerge that changed all of this. 

As online, or “ClickBeforeYouDig,” locate requests took over, software changed, too. Locate requests could now completely bypass agents, reducing one-call centre costs. One-call centre procedures enhanced, software streamlined, and training improved. Promoting the damage prevention process also changed. Call Before You Dig was no longer the preferred method of securing locates so centres began to promote ClickBeforeYouDig and ClickBeforeYouDig.com but the promotions and branding were inconsistent so USP registered the ClickBeforeYouDig trademark in Canada and the United States and offered it to everyone.

Within a few short years, the mayhem of the one-call centre had shifted to the harmony of the notification centre. Web-based locate requests quickly climbed to 75% across the country. The notification centres themselves also shifted from brick-and-mortar offices to virtual centres. Info-Excavation in Quebec and Ontario One-Call have business offices, but they too offer virtual workspace to their staff.

The benefits of shifting from calls to clicks were clear from an operational perspective but maybe there was more to it than just that. What if online locate requests were better overall? What if ClickBeforeYouDig wasn’t only streamlining longstanding processes but also reducing damages?

I needed to know.

I reached out to Utility Safety Partners’ notification centre manager, Josef Rosenberg, who at the time was also the chair of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance’s (CCGA) Data Reporting and Evaluation Committee. I told Joe I had a hunch web-based locate requests were reducing damages and suggested that if we could determine how a locate request was submitted, we could feasibly determine when damage was more likely to occur — by call or by click? After a brief discussion, we decided on a rather simple process to find out.

Review all damage data submitted into DIRT for Alberta within a specific timeframe and

• determine if a locate request was submitted. If yes,
• determine how that locate request was submitted — phone or web / call or click?

With that data in-hand, we should know if there was a disparity between the two locate request options and if one method was more likely to result in damage. Despite the simplicity of the task, it was quite tedious, but the results were fascinating. Not only was there a disparity between the two locate request options, but the likelihood of damage was two times higher when a locate request was submitted by phone! But why?

The answer is straightforward. There are less damages by web-based locate requests is because the person who is digging, or someone very close to the project, is physically drawing/identifying their dig site using the software rather than explaining its location to someone by phone. The locate submitter is typically familiar with the area of work and can use landmarks or structures to pinpoint their location. And if they’re tech-savvy, they can identify their dig site using GPS information. ClickBeforeYouDig takes all guesswork out of the communication process.

We approached our Operations Oversight and Guidance Committee, the operational arm of our board member companies. After explaining what we had done and the results of our analysis, we suggested it was time for USP to mandate web-based locate requests for USP members and contractors. The percentage of web-based locate requests for these two stakeholder groups was already high but those members and contractors choosing not to switch from calls to clicks needed a little push. The committee members agreed, and a board item was drafted for the USP board of directors to consider implementing the mandate. The board agreed with the recommendation and on Sept. 16, 2020, USP "soft-launched" the mandate, providing those members and contractors who continued to submit locate requests by phone with awareness of the impending change. USP’s agents walked callers through the online process and training sessions were offered. On Jan. 1, 2021, the mandate was hard launched. 

USP promoted the shift from calls to clicks on its social media channels, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, posted information in its eNews, Click to Know What’s Above and Below, and on its website. Since January 2021, contractor and member online locate requests haven’t dipped below 97% — and only because emergencies must be called in.

We also posted a challenge on USP’s LinkedIn profile explaining what we had done and challenging notification centres around the world to conduct the same analysis. While public feedback was minimal, it supported our findings. Interestingly, I also received emails and phone calls from industry colleagues in the United States stating they had conducted the suggested analysis and discovered the same results — damages were higher when a locate request was submitted by phone. However, they also provided they were reluctant to promote ClickBeforeYouDig and the related URL because of the Call811 brand and the Common Ground Alliance’s three-digit dialing advocacy (the CGA still doesn’t promote online locate requests). Ontario One Call, however, did provide the result of their analysis and it was even more compelling than USP’s.

According to the 2022 CCGA DIRT Report, 89% of all locate requests in Canada originate on the web — that’s over 2 million locate requests — and the percentage keeps growing. Despite this, the CCGA continues to promote “Call” Before You Dig in its Best Practices manual and buried utility markers across the country continue to promote the same. And so, in 2023, Utility Safety Partners submitted two transaction requests to the CCGA Best Practices Committee to a) strip “Call Before You Dig” from damage prevention vernacular and replace it with ClickBeforeYouDig and the related URL; and b) adopt and promote the ClickBeforeYouDig QR Code for all buried utility markers. Scanning the QR Code links the user directly to ClickBeforeYouDig.com where they can select their province, official language of choice and initiate the damage prevention process.

ClickBeforeYouDig is simple, fast, and it reduces damage.