The relationship between Police and the people they strive to protect may be a heavy topic for the UC&C community to start discussing but they need our help. It doesn’t take a genius to work out there is a disconnect between the police and public in large sections of the community, and an already fractious relationship would have been tested over the past two years. But that’s not to say people don’t want the authorities to change. In fact, according to Soprano Design Field Marketing Manager, EMEA, Jamie Armstrong, people are now looking for “enterprise level” communications with their police service. “The key issue that Police services across the world are facing is a disconnect between the police force and their constituents, who don't feel like they're being heard, and feel like they're completely separate from what police forces are doing,” said Armstrong. “Even when they're raising complaints or reporting crimes, they feel like they're not being kept in touch with, and generally communication is going in one direction. “I think there's been a development of distrust, not just with police forces but with the government in general. People don't know who to trust anymore, and communication is definitely a large part of creating that disconnect between constituents and governments.
“Now, constituents expect communication to be compact, similar to those that they get from private enterprises. We're seeing this shift when it comes to police, although we normally think of ‘customer experience’ and ‘police service’ in the same sentence”
Stretched Resources
One of the typical problems that officers have to deal with is the contrasting demands between bobbies on the beat and solving cybercrime, largely on the same budget. A lot of the problem is that innovative new systems are rarely adopted whilst on constricting budgets. However, Armstrong pointed out that a lot of communication methods police currently employ have a questionable ROI. “There's a general feeling that police forces are not seen as innovative,” said Armstrong. “They're lagging behind the times, still using things like posters, flyers, billboards, and television advertising, which are expensive ways to communicate with the public. “What’s more, they're not embracing the channel that people use the most, which is their mobile phones. There seems to be a slowness or apathy to reach people using more elevated channels, they're just engaging with people on their preferred channels. “There's still a heavy reliance on phone calls, so if somebody does lodge a complaint or report a crime, then the police would normally get back to that person by a phone call, which takes up people's time, they often go unanswered, which creates delays in the process.”
Integrated Comms
One of the keys to those processes is the IT system that each constabulary uses. According to Armstrong, a key to any transition to innovative communications, is being able to support the incumbent technology. “Different police forces use different IT systems, similar to CRM solutions, which allows the police force to communicate with members of the public in a safe and compliant way,” said Armstrong. “I think that’s one of the key selling points for Soprano Design. Our powerful APIs are able to integrate with any of the IT solutions that police are currently using in order for them to be able to deploy mobile communications into their constabulary and build a better relationship with their constituents.”
