Law and Order

JAN 2014

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FEATURE Incident-Driven Customer Care HOW TO DELIVER INCIDENT-DRIVEN CUSTOMER CARE: • Make your contact as important to you as it is to the citizen—what you say and do during any community interaction will be remembered forever. The reputation of you, your agency, and the badge is on the line at all times. • Recognize the value in making an investment—going the extra mile on any call for service will pay off exponentially down the road in the form of enhanced trust and respect for not only you, but your profession. • Don't take things personal—be professional at all times, realizing doing so takes more mental strength and courage than choosing to be negative, cynical or impatient. • Be a creative problem solver—challenge yourself to leverage your knowledge and experience to fnd unique solutions to seemingly unreasonable requests. You will impress the citizen—and your boss. • Strive for work-life—hobbies and interests outside of work will ward off burnout and cynicism, while keeping your mind sharp and your attitude positive. • Eat right, exercise and get enough rest—taking care of yourself will enhance your critical thinking ability as well as your patience, enabling you to consistently deliver IncidentDriven Customer Care. Be sure to make the customer contact as important to you as it is to the customer. For example, a police offcer may take a dozen crime reports in a given week, or a nurse working in a hospital may see a hundred patients. However, for the victim and patient, their experiences are much less frequent, and much more traumatic. While the notion of traumatic, infrequent experiences being more memorable is intuitive, the concept is actually based on science. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution have demonstrated how the hormone norepinephrine, which is released during emotionally charged events, increases the sensitivity of brain cells responsible for memory, enabling them to better preserve experiences for future recall. The odds are, a year later, the victim or patient will remember the details of what transpired better than the offcer or nurse. The experience will create indelible memories for the customer and be recounted to friends and family for many years to come. How they were treated will be an integral part of their story every time they tell it. At the end of the day, you will be left with new ambassadors for your organization or embittered detractors. Unreasonable Requests – Reasonable Solutions Customer requests and expectations, especially amidst crisis, chaos or trauma, may seem unreasonable or unorthodox. When people are experiencing trauma, frustration or grief, they often make all 58 LAW and ORDER I January 2014 sorts of unusual demands. They may be rude, insulting or diffcult. They are likely to ask you to do things that seem impossible to accomplish, or represent a signifcant departure from standard operating procedure. Specifcally what they are asking you to do may truly be unreasonable. However, before dismissing the request, pause, and focus on the outcome they are hoping to achieve from the request. Perhaps their end game can't be accomplished their way, but you know how to reach the same end point by doing it your way. Make no mistake, your way may be unorthodox, whacky or even a little timeconsuming as well. However, so long as it is consistent with your organization's Mission and Values, then management should support your plan of action if it solves the problem. Problem solving is complex, especially when rules, processes, people and timelines are involved. However, it is this same complexity that may offer a different path to the same goal—you just have to be willing to look for it. In short, there are often entirely reasonable solutions to seemingly unreasonable requests. Sole Purpose for the Process Why is any process undertaken? Generally speaking, a process is a means to an end, intended to produce some measurable result or desired outcome. Consider completing a police report, for instance. This process is intended to memorialize important events likely to be referenced in the future or docu- ment specifc facts to assist detectives and further investigate a reported crime. It is for this reason policy will often mandate report completion for serious crimes or injury traffc collisions, but generally not for minor matters, such as neighbor disputes or noise complaints. But what if the reporting party wants a police offcer to document the argument with his neighbor? Should the offcer do this? An offcer who has embraced IncidentDriven Customer Care will take the report, understanding customer satisfaction is an important desired outcome. While the report may have little or no value to a detective or insurance adjuster, the customer will certainly value the effort. An offcer with an incorrect mindset says, "I am not going to take a report, because policy does not require me to do so." Rather, an offcer with the correct mindset says, "I will take a report, because policy does not preclude it, it is consistent with my agency's mission, and it will satisfy the customer." From this perspective, we understand a process need not be undertaken only when it intends to accomplish the outcome for which it was designed; it's entirely OK for customer satisfaction to be the sole purpose for the process. An offcer who understands IncidentDriven Customer Care will reach to the outer limits of the organization's rules, systems and protocols to best serve the needs of the customer in crisis or chaos. These offcers are resourceful, relentless problemsolvers, who routinely employ appropriate discretion designed to make their customers feel special. They know the culture and structure of their organizations, know how to leverage every resource available to them, and how to link these resources to form sophisticated service strategies customized for specifc customer needs. They are masters at navigating their organization to identify and assemble the people and processes required to effectively troubleshoot the unique problem before them. Mike Hamel is the Deputy Chief with the Irvine, Calif. Police Department and may be reached at mhamel@ ci.irvine.ca.us. LaO Post your comments on this story by visiting www.lawandordermag.com

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