Blair Macdonald: Police director of Service Superintendent on Police non-emergency calls target, customer satisfaction

Police have a target of answering 70% of non-emergency calls within 90 seconds, but they're at 17%.

The average wait time is 6 minutes and 36 seconds. 

They now have a new focus: customer satisfaction.  

Police director of Service Superintendent Blair Macdonald talks to Mike Hosking. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Police are having trouble with their phones as well, which
probably won't surprise you. Target of answering seventy percent of
non emergency calls within ninety seconds, they're not at seventy
by the way, that at seventeen average time at six
minutes and thirty six seconds. So now they've dropped that target,
they'll focus on customer satisfaction. Police Director of Service Superintendent
Blee McDonald's will Us Blair, morning to you, Mardien and

(00:20):
Mike caw Are you I'm very well and do these
non emergency calls? What sort of thing are they after?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, look at a really broader church of things that
members of the public can come to us for. Typically
it is to report some type of low level property crime.
We do manage very minor family harm matters. They can
report that to us. But also some people just ring
us because they might be confused. They want to know
what the timers look how our staff have to be

(00:48):
very agile and we're almost Google for the police, is
how I like to describe it.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
That's why I asked the question, at these just idiots
wasting your time?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
No, not really, like I said, we are a differently
a date deeper to our organization, and we do. We're
the big open end of the funnel. So when people
contact us, we try to identify, Oh, actually this should
go through to one way mine. You actually need to
see a police officer right now, so hey, we can
actually help you with that.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Okay, what is customer satisfaction and how are you going
to measure it?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well? For us, we've learned over the last two years
through our Voice of the Customer that if a member
of the public rings us and they feel understood, listen
to that, We've understood the information they've provided us, and
the most importantly, that we've given them a really clear
expectation about what police will do with that next. That
drives our customer satisfaction.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Okay, when will we know whether this is any better
than what we previously had, which hasn't worked.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh look, I'd argue, at the moment we know that
now we've seen a massive increase in the amount of
contact that police have now with the public. It's really
fascinating that and I've only been in this role four
months but learned that between us and one one one,
we make up almost eighty percent of all contacts with
members of the public, and for most of us, we

(02:09):
would assume that actually most contacts haven't been at a
police station or with the frontline police officer. We're actually
eighty percent of at volume and touch point in community.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
All right, Blair, appreciate it very much, Blair McDonald, that
doesn't surprise me at all when you say you would
assume that most contacts at a police station. Find me
a police station. I mean most people will have a
clue with the local police stations. Having said that, if
you just want the time in ringing the police, do
you mind waiting six minutes and thirty six seconds? My
guess is if you're the sort of person who thinks
that ringing the police to ask the time, you've probably

(02:40):
got six minutes and thirty six seconds on your hands.
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