WilCo Coronavirus Vaccine 'Call Center' Adds One Volunteer Agent

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX — A "call center" serving as a clearinghouse for information related to the coronavirus vaccine reportedly added workers to help meet demand, according to the county judge. But Patch learned it has grown by just one, a volunteer helping take calls from residents seeking information.

The county set up the function earlier this month as vaccine doses began arriving from the state in earnest. But residents alerted Patch of an inability to get in touch with a call center representative, as the telephone merely rings without anyone picking up. The call center is designed to help people get on waitlists to receive their vaccine, check on their appointment status, learn locations for vaccinations will be administered, and other related topics.

In a Monday news conference, Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell referenced the high volume of calls received at the fledgling site — some 16,000 since the center was launched on Feb. 1 — while adding that the site had been beefed up with additional personnel.

Patch previously reached out to county spokesperson Connie Odom for details about the expansion, learning the "call center" actually comprises existing county employees taking turns answering residents' calls. No federal CARES Act funds disbursed to help communities hard hit by the pandemic were used to launch the function, the spokesperson confirmed.

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Following Gravell's assertion of a beefed-up center, Odom on Tuesday told Patch that one person had been added as a volunteer taking residents' calls. County employees work each weekday in two, five-hour shifts from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and again at 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., Odom said. The spokesperson previously told Patch that calls were handled by up to 20 county workers in shifts.

"We average 6-8 call center agents per shift that are physical in the call center, with a number of county employees answering calls from their desks," Odom wrote in an email sent Tuesday. "Training is daily and regularly updated with new information through an FAQ document and group chat."

In a prior reply to a Patch inquiry, Odom said some eight to 10 employees work per shift taking calls from a 20-line phone bank. Odom added that one to two people at the call center are fluent in Spanish.

The coronavirus vaccine information call center can be reached at (512) 943-1600, and is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.