First call response

Added resources and investment have helped drive better effi ciency in call response rates for NZ Police.According to Superintendant Andy McGregor, National Manager Communications Centres, the establishment  of a new contact centre in the Counties-Manukau district has helped NZ Police increase its effi ciency in  dealing with non-emergency calls,prompting improved call response rates detailed in the recently released NZ Police Annual report for 2008/09. McGregor says the development of the Crime Reporting Line a couple of years ago has provided NZ Police  with a better means ofmanaging incoming calls. What the line does is allow a greater number of non-emergency calls that don’t require police dispatch to be  resolved directly over the phone. This has lowered the overall abandonment rate and filtered out excess call  traffic to emergency 111 and non-emergency calls requiring police dispatch.“We have to get our 111 calls right, so if we can resolve nonemergency calls at initial contact, then it is benefi  cial to the entire NZ Police contact centre,” McGregor says. “So what we have done is we’ve highlighted the issue and looked at a solution to help manage our  non-emergency calls better.” McGregor says reducing the abandonment rate has been key to improving the overall efficiency. “Forty-seven  percent of abandoned calls ring back, and often they’ll use 111 line, so a higher repeat rate puts pressure on the emergency line traffic.”In the past year, NZ Police has increased its overall staffi ng for the Crime Reporting Line to 67 contact centre  staff with the creation of a new contact centre in the Counties-Manukau district, whichemploys between 20-30 staff.Statistics taken from the NZ Police Annual report show improved response rates in the northern sector (north  of Taupo), with 111 calls answered within 10 seconds up from 94.2% in 2007/08 to 96% in 2008/09.General calls answered within 30 seconds in the northern sector also showed improvement, up from 84.4% in  2007/08 to 91% in 2008/09.While statistics show a slight decline in response rates in both the central and southern sectors, the  improvements in the northern sector, which handles 67% of the country’s workload, have helped bring the  national response rate for 111 calls answered within 10 seconds up by 0.5% (from 94.5% in 2007/08 to 95%  in 2008/09), and the rate for general calls answered within 30 seconds up by 1%(from 87% to 88%  respectively).Despite the slight declines in the central and southern regions, McGregor believes the greater effi ciency shown  in the northern sector will have run-on effects further south. “If we manage our calls well, the rest of the country will do better as a result,” he says. McGregor says there have been no decisions made on extending the Crime Reporting Line resources to  include the central and southern sectors yet. However, the system has “proved to be a winner” in practice, he  says.In the future, McGregor says NZ Police will be looking into the vitualisation of all police contact centres,  whereby all calls go to the first available contact centre personnel, regardless of the sector they work out of.NZ Police contact centres in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are staffed by 532 personnel.