Survey will shape future of contact management

The first ever independent survey that measures how the police service in England and Wales conducts and manages contact with the public, will help the service move forward in delivering a “truly citizen focused” contact management.

The National Policing Improvements Agency’s (NPIA) National Benchmarking Exercise 2008 report compares contact with the public to how it is handled by other public-sector and private businesses.

The exercise involved the 43 police forces in England and Wales, British Transport Police (BTP) and Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC).

“We are delighted with the key findings of this pioneering report. As a national first, the survey clearly demonstrates that modern policing does take a public focused approach and in key areas of contact mangement, it is considered world-class,” said Superintendent Peter Major, NPIA’s project leader on the Contact Management Programme.

“We have the lowest attrition of staff in this area, which reveals the police service as the employer of choice when it comes to contact management.”

He said he was delighted with the key findings, which show that:

•Police contact centres are extremely customer service and citizen focused, with excellent customer satisfaction, scoring results as high as 90 per cent.

•Many police forces achieved good first call resolution (FCR) rates – this is considered a good indicator of high customer service levels.

•Staff retention and length of service rates are generally much higher than average. This is partly because careers in police contact centres appear to be highly skilled, rewarding and complex places to work.

•96 per cent of forces ranked “improving service” as one of their top three priorities, compared with 82 per cent in the public sector.

Supt Major added: “This survey forms a fundamental part of a review of police contact management for the 21st century and will help as we move forward in embedding an even better service.”

He said the report will help the police service draw good practice from across the public and private sectors as it aims to put citizen’s need first.

“As we move forward, we want to consider the public’s needs and expectations well in advance of the first point of contact they have with contact management centres.”

Supt Major said the programme will also help forces focus on continuing to improve satisfaction through the increased use of segmentation.

“Once segmented groups have been identified, a range of different consultation methods may be used such as surveys, focus groups and in-depth interviews with users to gain customer insight regarding customer views of the services being provided. Then an appropriate strategy based on those demands can be formed,” he said.

“This work follows a review of national call handling standards where we have established what the views are towards current standards and how they can be improved. It follows other initiatives such as the HMIC’s Beyond the Call thematic report and we will now take forward the wealth of information we have gathered.

“A new set of standards will put contact management at the strategic heart of service delivery; it’s very much about taking into account the many different ways the public contact the police and making sure we have the technology in place.”

Minister for Police, Crime, Security and Counter Terrorism, Tony McNulty, said: “Public confidence in the police is key and I’m pleased to find results of this survey show that the professionalism and quality of service from the police when handling calls from the public is as good as, or better, than other public and private sector organisations.”