Nottinghamshire Police puts customers at the centre of the service – case study

The Nottinghamshire Police control rooms were highly commended at the 2009 CCF European Call Centre Awards for improvements undertaken since April 2007. The only public sector organisation in their category to be shortlisted, key improvements included the streamlining of the crime recording process through the Crime Wizard module from criminal intelligence IT specialist, ABM.

Acting Inspector Rob Gilchrist, who worked at the forefront of the project, explains: “Prior to April 2007, callers complained that they were unable to get through quickly to report incidents and ultimately service delivery was not meeting customers’ expectations and the organisations requirements. Furthermore, the existing system was a heavy drain on police time and resources. Incident details were first recorded on Command and Control. Crime desk officers would then re-key the information into the system before ringing victims back with a crime number.

“Twelve percent of all incidents recorded were crimes that didn’t warrant an initial officer response and therefore weren’t allocated a crime number straight away. For incidents where an officer did attend, crime numbers were given at the time of the visit. The double keying of incident details led to inefficient use of police time both in the call centre and on the front-line. The resulting delays also resulted in frustration for the caller who had to wait for a second call to get a crime number.”