KOVA Corporation

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 years since 9/11.

As we mourn for the more than 3,000 people who lost their lives on that terrible, tragic day, we want also to remember with heartfelt gratitude the first responders who rushed in to rescue so many survivors and provide emergency medical care that saved lives.

Those first responders, and the thousands of others who work to keep the rest of us safe every single day, are the reason our company is in the business of public safety software. These brave police officers, firefighters, and EMS providers put their lives at risk on the line of duty, so the rest of us can go about our daily lives.

Unfortunately, we’ve had several sad reminders of that this year with the shooting of policemen in Dallas, the loss of firefighters to wildfires out West, and too many others that go largely unnoticed.

We are proud of the small part we play in helping public safety officials and first responders operate more efficiently, more smoothly, and especially more safely. And on this sad anniversary, we want to share a story of how we were privileged to lend our resources to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2001.

We all remember where we were on that day. For many of us at KOVA, we were at our headquarters in Little Egg Harbor, a mere hour and a half away from New York City. Like so many across the United States, many of us felt helpless. As an organization, we wanted to help however we could.

When the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) lost its Emergency Operations Center in the attacks, we reached out to our contacts in their engineering department to offer our assistance in any way we could.

The PANYNJ accepted our offer. Their request was for a large capacity recording solution that could accommodate the new temporary Emergency Operations Center that they were creating.

Thanks to our wide network of specialists, we were able to assemble and install the equipment within 20 hours of the request. We also were able to provide training on the new system to PANYNJ employees. KOVA established that the services were free and the solution was on loan for as long as it was needed.

Shortly after, the PANYNJ needed assistance in creating large volumes of copies of recordings from their legacy recorders. These needed to be in digital format for ease of dispersal to investigative entities.

We were eager to help once again, and so we devised a method to transfer audio from their legacy system, convert it into a digital format, and provide a mass copy procedure to facilitate the discovery request.

Three years later, when a permanent PANYNJ Emergency Operations Center was being rebuilt, the organization wanted to buy the solution. Although we informed them that it was an open-ended loan and no payment was necessary, they would not take no for an answer.

So, instead of just issuing an invoice, we provided the organization with a brand new solution, complete with the latest hardware and software technology, and transferred all of their data over. We were also told that KOVA was one of three companies that did not charge the PANYNJ for their services during the Sept. 11 attacks and aftermath.  

We share this story not because we want to illustrate our own virtue – we simply did what was right to help our country, just like so many other Americans did on that day and in the months and years afterward.

We share this story because we want our readers and clients to know that we understand just how important our work is to the public safety communities that we serve.

If computer systems go out, it can have major adverse effects on the safety of not just everyday civilians, but of our law enforcement and emergency personnel as well. KOVA is dedicated to making sure public safety organizations have the hardware and software they need to do their jobs as well as possible. We are extremely grateful to be able to work with those who keep our country safe.

How To Show Appreciation For Police OfficersShare This Story, Choose Your Platform!

Unless you have a friend or family member in uniform, you may not think about the police all that often until you really need them (or get a speeding ticket). That’s unfortunate, because even though you don’t interact with them every day, they’re out on the job all day and night protecting us and staying ready to respond to 911 calls. Police officers don’t always get a lot of appreciation for the dangerous work they do, so take a look at some of the ways you can show them that you appreciate their commitment.

First, you should keep in mind that some departments have strict rules on accepting gratuities in any form, as it could pose a conflict of interest. Not every department has the same policy, so check with your local department before you send any gifts or pay for food.

Pay For A Meal

This also falls under the caveat of needing to check first. Some people anonymously pay for military members and police officers when they see them eating in a restaurant. Whether it’s just a coffee or an entire lunch, this is a great gesture and certainly shows your appreciation.

Say Thank You

This is actually a very underrated option. If you see a police officer around town, simply tell them that you appreciate all the work they do, and thank them for keeping you safe. That’s a small gesture that can make a big difference in an officer’s day. You can also send a thank you note to the station; outlining a few reasons why you value and respect the work they do every day. Even just a friendly wave when a police cruiser drives by is a nice way to show you care.

Make A Donation

If you called and checked with your department and found that they don’t accept any form of gratuities, this is another good option for you. Many departments have scholarships or memorial funds that they run, and a donation is a good way to show your respect and appreciation. There are also plenty of organizations that assist injured officers or help the families of fallen officers. These donations are incredibly important, so look into your local organizations and find out where your money would do the most good.

Write A Letter To The Editor

It doesn’t have to be political or fiery in tone, it should just get across the point that the officers in your community put their lives on the line for everyone, and you want to thank them for that. Taking the time to write out a thoughtfully worded letter to the editor in your local paper is an excellent way to show your support for your police department.

Police officers don’t always get the respect and appreciation they deserve, but you can help change that. It isn’t always about the big shows of support. Sometimes small acts of kindness are just as powerful. So take some of these ideas and use them to show the officers in your town how much you appreciate them.

Too often, the hard and dangerous work that our police officers do goes unnoticed or at least unrecognized. Most people don’t really think about what police do every day in their community until they need assistance from them. There are a lot of reasons to thank your local police department, and these are just a few of them.

They Work A Dangerous Job

This really can’t be overstated. Every day police officers leave the station in order to protect us from any dangerous elements in our community. They put themselves in dangerous situations that could end with them being hurt or even killed—all in the name of public safety. That’s not a job that many people sign up for, and it’s sad that many of us ignore the good that police do on a daily basis.

They Do The Dirty Work We Don’t Want To

Would you ever willingly go confront an intoxicated person outside your building at 2:00 a.m.? How about a drug addict? We don’t want to deal with these people, so we call the police. Police officers deal with the worst people in our society all the time. That’s not easy physically or mentally, and they do it so we don’t have to.

They Are Given A Bad Image

In addition to going out and protecting their communities every day, police officers have to do their work with the knowledge that any mistake they make will be all over the media. People who never even interact with officers end up with negative images of them from the media coverage they get.

They Aren’t Out To Get You

Police don’t want to hurt anyone. Their job is to protect, not harm their community. If you treat them with respect, they’ll treat you the same way. Officers take a lot of abuse from people who don’t know them and simply don’t like the police. Showing a little respect will go a long way when you’re talking with police. You got a ticket because you were speeding, not because the officer just felt like giving it to you.

They’re Human Too

This is something that gets overlooked all the time. Maybe it’s because of the uniform and the badge, but people often think that police are very different from them. Simply put, they aren’t. Their kids probably go to the same school as yours. They eat at the same restaurants as you do, and they get their coffee at the same corner store. Too often we forget that police officers are human—they aren’t infallible and sometimes they make mistakes. That’s not a good enough reason to treat them with contempt or try to make their job more difficult.

When it comes to public safety technology, most people don’t think about all the different organizations that have to communicate and interact with each other to adequately keep the public safe. For this to happen, it’s important for these organizations to fully invest in public safety technology.

Even private organizations that own a great deal of land, or are responsible for the safety of the people on their property should be investing in public safety technology.

For example, a college campus usually consists of large amounts of space that the college or university is responsible for. Multiple buildings, quads, and other gathering areas that are sometimes full of students, and at other times deserted. Most college campuses have their own campus police or at least a security force, but they can’t be everywhere.

One solution has been the installation of emergency assistance posts in areas on campus. If someone believes they are in trouble, they can simply push a button on the post to receive emergency services, and that means the police know their exact location. These posts also make appearances on public trails, parks, and other public spaces where there isn’t always consistent foot traffic or people nearby.

That in itself is a problem for first responders. Large public spaces and areas without intersections can lead to trouble identifying the location of a call from a cell phone. If the caller doesn’t know their exact location, the dispatcher needs to be able to locate them. Unfortunately, many 911 systems are antiquated by today’s standards and have trouble pinpointing the exact location that mobile users are at. To achieve an appropriate level of safety in public spaces, first responders need to have the best software and technology on hand.

Replacing them with a system that adheres to Next Generation 911 (NG911) standards provides a much more efficient system that can get first responders where they need to be more quickly and safely.

Organizations can add more first responders and agents to take calls, but without the appropriate software, there is a limit to what they can do for someone in trouble. By employing some of the vast selection of public safety technology that’s available, administrators can help first responders get to emergencies faster, and save lives in the process.

For instance, a state-of-the-art system like Verint Media Recorder can help monitor PSAP calls and other interactions to improve performance, capture a range of multimedia information from multiple sources, and efficiently document and report on incidents.

Investing in public safety technology is the smart way for organizations to ensure that they respond quickly and effectively to any emergencies that occur in their jurisdiction. The upfront cost is easily overshadowed by the continued benefits of having a high-tech system in place to deal with any emergency situations that do come up.

If your public safety department is looking for a cost-effective way to improve its performance,contact KOVA today!

911 dispatchers rarely have a reason to laugh on the job. 90 percent of the time, they’re a lifeline for the person on the other end of the line. That’s why 911 dispatchers are often referred to as “invisible first responders.”

But every now and then, someone calls with an issue that has nothing to do with life or death. Instead, it’s something a lot more – well, comical. Take a read through our list of the 6 funniest 911 calls in recent memory.

1. The Fashion Emergency

In Greenville, S.C. a 911 dispatcher received a phone call from someone who sounded like a baby, according to a local news channel. Police responded to the call to make sure everything was ok, ending up at a house where an elderly man answered the door – followed by his two-year-old granddaughter, Aliyah, who had just one pant leg on. It turned out she’d called 911 to get help putting on the rest of her pants.

The grandfather had no idea that Aliyah had called 911 and apologized, but the officer who responded was happy to sit down with Aliyah and help her get dressed.

2. The Swimming Squirrel

One Oklahoma dispatcher got a very strange call one day: a woman had opened her toilet seat and discovered a squirrel swimming around in it. Instead of calling a wildlife rehabilitator, which might have made more sense, the woman called 911.

Shortly afterward, police arrived on scene to apprehend the soggy animal and get him safely out of the toilet and into the hands of wildlife experts.

3. Burglary is a Scary Business

What do you do if you hear strange noises in the house you happen to be robbing? Call 911, of course (or the Romanian version of 911, as that’s where this occurred).

A thief got spooked by strange sounds while robbing a house, and called to report the sounds to the police. The police arrived, but they weren’t too concerned about the sounds when they saw what the man was doing. They arrested him and the man went to prison. And the sounds? They were being made by the homeowner’s pet cat.

4. The Double 911 Call

In Portland, Ore. a man broke into someone’s house to take a shower – or at least, that’s what he was doing when the homeowner came home and found him in the bathroom. Not only did the homeowner call 911, but the intruder did too. He was scared, he said, that the homeowner might have a gun.

There’s no report on whether the homeowner did, in fact, have a gun, but the police officers who arrested the intruder certainly did.

5. Give this Lady her Western Burger

One woman called 911 over a fast food emergency: Burger King had messed up her order of a Western BBQ Burger, and she just had to get it fixed even if it meant calling the police.

The dispatcher displayed quite a bit of patience as the woman listed all her complaints about the Burger King employees and the manager. Finally, the dispatcher told her that police would not be responding and advised her to speak to the manager herself.

This good advice wasn’t much appreciated by the caller, who said that the police were supposed to be there to protect her. Even, it appears, from mistaken fast food orders.

6. Cat Holds Couple Hostage

In Greenfield, Wis. a distraught woman called to say she and her husband were basically being held hostage … by their cat.

By the time the woman called, the cat had attacked her husband and they’d retreated to the bedroom where they locked themselves in, safely protected from the crazy feline. Officers responded and the cat was taken by Animal Control.

Oddly enough, this isn’t the only cat-related 911 call on record. A woman in Florida also called 911 to report being held hostage by her Russian Blue cat.

Want to read more of our blog posts for 911 and PSAP workers? Check out “Hiring Tips for PSAP Managers,” “Preparing Your PSAP for NG911 Compliance,” and “Why PSAPs Should Be Using the U.S. National Grid to Find 911 Callers.”

In every industry, organizations have to find effective, accurate ways to measure their performance.

For certain industries, this can be fairly straightforward. Take retail, for instance. Retailers can measure daily, weekly, and monthly sales figures to get an accurate idea of how they’re performing compared to last month or last year.

Contact centers can measure things like First Call Resolution and Call Abandonment rates to gauge their customers’ level of satisfaction.

But in the public safety industry, measuring performance is often much more nuanced. Sure, there are certain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can be easily tracked, but how do you measure citizen satisfaction, or citizens’ feeling of safety? These questions are much more challenging to answer.

Here are a few tips for effectively measuring your own public safety organization’s performance.

Collect and analyze data whenever possible.

With today’s technology, we’re able to collect truly massive amounts of data.

And we don’t just have to go through traditional channels anymore: citizens are reporting crimes, quality of life issues, and public safety problems via social media, while the internet has made gathering data through surveys and other formal requests easier than ever.

While this has given public safety organizations plenty of information to work with, it also means they have to figure out how to use it. This can require additional resources, whether in the form of personnel, technology, or time.

These can be hard sells in an era when budget cuts continue to plague most government agencies. However, it’s not impossible – take this example from an article in City Smart Data Solutions. Back in 2011, the Santa Cruz Police Department was suffering from a 30 percent hike in calls they received while dealing with 20 percent less staff than they’d had since 2000.

As they were dealing with short resources, they had to think creatively about how to address this problem. So they decided to hire a mathematician and professor to develop a formula for predicting future crimes. This creative use of data allowed the department to continue to serve its population well, even though they were understaffed.

Identify your key KPIs.

Each public safety agency, from fire to police to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) has specific performance measures, or KPIs, that it keeps track of.

But how do you know whether you’re keeping track of the right ones – the ones that will optimally inform your organization’s policies?

One way to do this is to compare your KPIs to those of other similar agencies. A PSAP, for example, could compare its KPIs to those tracked by another PSAP that serves a comparable population, as well as another PSAP located in a nearby town.

Not only can this offer PSAP managers a bigger-picture view of their industry as a whole, but it can also facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas and strategies that benefit all parties involved.

Invest in public safety analytics technology.

The right technology can make collecting and sorting through all your public safety data much, much easier. Take speech analytics technology: with Verint Media Recorder for Public Safety’s optional speech analytics capability, 911 calls are transcribed and then made searchable.

Using guided, visual search tools, the software can help users identify trends and insights hidden within related calls, as well as areas that need improvement. Verint Media Recorder’s speech analytics tool is also useful in identifying training opportunities to improve call-taker performance.

There are also excellent social media analytics tools available to help public safety organizations make sense of the information they receive online almost constantly from citizens.

Without some kind of analytics software or service, it can be nearly impossible to gain even a fraction of the usable intelligence that’s available.

To learn more about how data can best inform your public safety agency’s practices, read our whitepaper “Speech Analytics in Today’s Emergency Communications Center.”

We’ve all heard about how important analytics are to running a successful contact center. With the incredible amount of data that’s now available to track, there’s no excuse for not taking advantage of it.

But there’s a potential downside to having all this access to trackable data, or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). How do you know which KPIs you should be tracking? You’ve got limited time and resources, after all – you don’t want to waste any time measuring something that won’t help you in the long run.

While each contact center will have certain KPIs that are more important for them to measure than others, in general, these are a few of the KPIs that your center should be tracking for maximum success.

Call abandonment rate

Your call abandonment rate is how many of your callers hang up before being connected to an agent. This is a very important KPI to track, as it will tell you how many of your callers are becoming frustrated with long hold times.

If your call abandonment rate is high, it may point to a need for more agents or for changes in your staffing. A workforce optimization suite, like the Verint Workforce Optimization suite, can help you track and manage your staffing resources so that you’ve got the adequate number of people available to handle your highest-volume call times.

Average time spent in queue

Like your call abandonment rate, this KPI will give you an idea of how satisfied your customers are and whether or not they’re likely to stay your customers.

No caller wants to spend valuable time tethered to the phone, listening to canned music while they wait for an agent to answer.

Keeping track of this KPI – which is found by dividing the total amount of time callers wait in queues by the total number of calls your agents answer – will help you determine whether your agents are providing your customers with the best possible service. It will also give you an idea of whether your agents have the tools and training they need to do their jobs well.

First call resolution (FCR)

First call resolution – or the percentage of customers whose issues are resolved with a single phone call, without any need for a transfer or follow-up – has been found to have the highest impact on customer satisfaction, according to Ameyo. Each 1 percent improvement in FCR results in a 1 percent improvement in customer satisfaction. This kind of one-to-one cause and effect relationship is rare when it comes to KPIs, and should be capitalized upon.

One thing you can do to improve your FCR is ensure that your agents have access to a robust knowledge management portal. This will ensure that they can easily find the information they need to help your customers as quickly as possible.

Agent turnover rate

It’s no secret that contact centers often experience high agent turnover rates.

While turnover can be a headache for managers, who must continually find and train new agents, it can also have a negative impact on customer satisfaction. Team morale may also suffer.

When contact centers are understaffed, even for short periods of time, agents’ workloads and stress levels can be significantly increased, so you want to keep an eye on this KPI and consider what you can do to reduce turnover as much as possible.

Tracking KPIs is a vital part of managing your contact center’s success and increasing your customer satisfaction. For more information on contact center KPIs, read our post “Establishing Your Contact Center KPIs.”

Contact centers spend a lot of time and energy getting everything just right. Using analytics, they can find the best scheduling during times of heavy call traffic and even change how their agents respond to customers’ problems. Having your contact center running efficiently during normal times is a great goal, but what happens when something goes wrong? How can you prevent a disaster when calls spike and your system is overloaded? Here’s how you can be as prepared as possible.

Testing Your Capabilities

You know what your contact center can normally handle, and maybe even a little past that, but do you know what will happen if incoming calls spike far past normal levels? Depending on what business you’re in, your contact center might have annual spikes (possibly due to weather) and you have to be prepared for the worst.

That’s why you need to test that scenario well in advance. A lot can change since the last time you had a surge in your calls, and these tests can help you spot unforeseen problems. The last thing you want is to be in the middle of a huge uptick in calls, only to realize that the new tech you implemented can’t handle the stress. You should always be prepared for the worst-case scenario. That way you can’t get surprised, even when things aren’t going well.

Think About The Customer

With a huge surge in calls comes the problem of delivering great customer service. And if you aren’t getting your customers what they want now, then you’re probably not going to do very well when traffic is at an all-time high. That’s when you’re the most vulnerable for negative reviews from customers online, loss of business, and a damaged reputation. Part of this may include surveying your customers to find out their level of satisfaction and what you can do better. But you can also look at the data from your calls and use analytics to find the areas where you could be doing better. You might not be perfect when that worst-case scenario rolls around, but you’ll miles ahead of where you would have been.

Keep Testing

The best way to keep your contact center out of a disastrous situation is through vigilance. Maybe you know when a spike in calls is coming, and maybe you don’t. The only way you’ll be truly ready is if you keep testing your capabilities, keep updating your software, and stay on the lookout for trouble. A prepared contact center will be able to weather a surge in calls without turning it into a disaster for the company.

The only true way to prevent disasters in your contact center is to stay proactive. You can’t stop everything, but you just might keep yourself out of trouble when the calls begin rolling in. Contact KOVA today if you’d like more information on how you can keep your contact center running smoothly, even during the worst call traffic.