Boone County Joint Communication says response positive to dispatcher satisfaction survey
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Boone County Joint Communications Director Christie Davis said Thursday that feedback has been positive in the first 90 days of community surveys on satisfaction with dispatchers.
The rate of positive responses is 93%, Davis said.
The survey was rolled out on Nov. 19 and sends two questions to a 911 or 311 caller after they get off the phone. Davis said BCJC has received 1,925 responses in the last 90 days.
The survey asks callers to score on a scale of 1 to 5.
"Then once you give that rating, it will ask you for any potential feedback on the call take, and we share that with our employees," Davis said.
Davis said they use the application PowerEngage to send the alert; the program costs $11,000 annually. Davis said the application also provides internal alerts when a telecommunicator has taken a difficult or traumatic phone call, prompting a wellness check on the employee.
Davis said the community benefits from the survey because the immediate feedback allows BCJC to address concerns before they fester and become systemic issues.
Davis said most of the written feedback has been related to the first responders on scene instead of the call-taking process itself.
"Either they didn't get a call back from the agency, or they weren't happy about the response, whereas our response is looking just from the call taker from when they actually called in," Davis said.
However, any negative feedback or poor rating related to the telecommunicators is reviewed. Regardless of their nature, all responses are made available to all dispatchers to learn from, according to Davis.
"We share that with them on a dashboard so they can actually see the responses that they get back from those citizens," Davis said. "It comes up, and it shows the actual review that the caller provided, as well as the date and time that the call was made and who the call taker was."
BCJC has 43 full-time and five part-time dispatchers. Davis said there are 12 dispatchers still in various stages of training, but four are not yet released to work solo because they are in their initial academy training.
Davis said the system won't send the survey to callers who were in a traumatic situation. Callers will also not receive a survey between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. Those who get the survey can also call BCJC to provide more details on their experience with a dispatcher, Davis said.
She said BCJC will monitor the survey's impact on improving dispatch response times in several areas over the coming months to see if they can recognize any patterns.
