The main problem is that retailers now have to do most of the work themselves. Yes, the customer picks out the item. But employees then have to locate the item, box it, and ship it – or if they’re lucky, bag it for curbside service. If a consumer has a ton of items in their cart, you can imagine how time-consuming and costly this becomes. And if you’ve ever heard of impulse buying – well, no one is in the stores to see or hear about anything additional to snag before heading to the register. So, what happens to personalized, customer-centric support while everyone is busy fulfilling orders? That is where call centers come in. And they can do way more than just answer your phone.

Field more than just phone calls.

Live Chat

According to a 2015 Zendesk study, as many as 92% of consumers feel satisfied when using live chat. And how about the statistic that 50% of consumers say having questions answered via live chat during an online purchase is an essential feature for any brand? While your staff is busy processing, filling and shipping online orders, a call center can manage your live chat channel. Skilled agents are able to juggle several chats at once. That means happy customers getting the answers they’re looking for, and more sales conversions to boost your bottom line. In fact, research has shown that live chat leads to a 48% uptick in revenue per chat hour and a 40% higher conversion rate!

SMS Response

Did you know that 98% of smartphone users in the United States text on a regular basis, but only 14% of companies text with consumers? If you haven’t adopted texting as part of your customer service arsenal, then here’s the 411. In a survey of 346 companies that use business texting, 85% of their customers would rather receive a text over a phone call or email. For a call center, responding to inbound texts is just as easy as responding to a live chat. And with 77% of consumers using texting over any other messaging tool, now is as good a time as any to incorporate texting into your business model. It’s quick and convenient, no Internet required.

Give callers the impulse to buy.

Order Taking

Though many consumers prefer the low-contact method of web surfing to make purchases, there are still people who want to talk to an actual person, on their actual phone. In fact, a global customer service study by Microsoft found that 39% of people prefer speaking on the phone to any other means of customer service. And when broken down by country, 44% of Americans are dialing in for assistance. Call centers specialize in order taking, and agents will peruse your website during training to familiarize themselves with your products and the checkout process. From entering orders to returns to tracking shipments, customers will get the full-service care they want, and you can work your magic without being tied up on the phone.

Cross-Selling & Upselling

When an agent is working with a caller to enter an order, you can instruct the agent to look for those pop-ups and side bars that suggest items the caller may want to purchase based on what’s in their cart. It’s an easy cross-sell to an impulse buyer. You can even program an agent’s script so that if a customer intends to make a purchase in a particular category of items, the agent is prompted to cross-sell by asking follow-up questions. For example, let’s say that a customer is interested in cast-iron pans. A cast-iron seasoning and cleaning kit can be scripted as an add-on. Along the same line, if they request the basic seasoning kit, the agent can upsell, offering an upgraded kit with two extra pan scrapers and an oven mitt for just $3 more. Agents are trained to both follow instructions and read their script. If you program it, they’ll say it!

Let technology do the walking.

Virtual Queueing & Callback Systems

Whether or not you’ve heard of the term virtual queueing, you’ve most certainly experienced the technology. You call your ISP. The automated greeting informs you that there is a 25-minute wait to speak with a representative. Do you want to hold, or would you like to receive a call back when it’s your turn in the queue? Well, some call centers can do the same thing. And they can also track callers who disconnect before reaching an agent and call them back to try to help you recapture those leads. With retail sales plunging as a result of the coronavirus, grabbing hold of every prospective customer is essential to your mid- and post-pandemic success.

CRM Integrations

If you’re currently using customer resource management or lead tracking software such as Salesforce, Pipedrive, or HubSpot, why not integrate them with your call center? Agents can take down customers’ information, and via API integration, that data can be pushed to your software. This way, even if the customer doesn’t follow through with a purchase, you’ll have their contact details to reach out regarding any questions or concerns they need to discuss before completing the sale, or for future marketing efforts such as promotions and surveys. This eliminates having to do double the work – receiving a message and taking time out of your day for data entry. Let technology work on your behalf and make your job so much easier.

The best part of using a call center to help with hands-free shopping is that your valued customers are communicating with live human beings! No bots, no auto-replies. Only real people answering questions in real time. Your call center becomes your trusted intake department. And that frees up your intake department to lend a hand getting orders out the door asap. It will not only increase the likelihood of making a sale, but it will increase productivity across the board for your staff. Having a team of agents waiting to personalize customer interactions while you’re tied up behind the scenes is invaluable. As anyone in business can tell you, when you show your customers how much they matter, you’re building lifelong relationships. And that’s money in the bank for years to come.

The post How Call Centers Can Help Maximize Sales with Hands-Free Shopping appeared first on SAS Call Center.

Call center dispatching combines a caller’s urgent needs with the appropriate on-call staff member to meet the customer’s expectations – meaning if your customers have issues, the call center is responsible for connecting them with the best staff member on your end to handle it. Since just about every business dispatches for different reasons, everything from connecting hot sales leads to your closer or time-sensitive customer service requests, the range of dispatching requests are vast. These can include emergency repairs, high value contract customers, medical emergencies, sales, and more.

For dispatching to be part of your call center protocol, it needs to be programmed into your script. Specifically, you need to communicate with your call center which situations warrant a dispatch, and which ones don’t. And, you’ll need to specify which staff member to reach out to for which issues. As an example, if you’re using a call center for your apartment complex, the center will probably reach out to your plumber for plumbing emergencies, your locksmith for lock-outs, and your security service for any reports of suspicious activity.

In the call center environment, the dispatchers rely on the call center software to map out who to contact and for what. It’s the responsibility of businesses to make sure their dispatching schedules are up-to-date and the dispatching contact numbers are working. If this data isn’t updated each time there’s a change, it creates room for error and dispatching delays. Having all data programmed into the call center system itself automates the dispatching and optimizes the call. This means shorter call times, happier customers, lower call center bills, and happier staff.

Here is how activating dispatching in your call center account can improve the customer experience and drive efficiency in outsourcing.

Increase efficiency and improve customer service with call center dispatching

When you add dispatching to your call center protocol, you’re ready to take on emergencies, urgent requests, and other after hours issues your customers may have. Call center dispatching allows you to truly be a 24/7 company.

1. Schedule in advance

Most call centers can schedule up to a year in advance. When programming your on-call staff, always keep your schedule updated as far in advance as possible so it’s not forgotten at the 11th hour. To stay as efficient as possible, we recommend updating your on-call schedule with your call center as soon as you have it finalized within your own office. If you update your schedule every month, update the call center at the same time. When you treat your call center as a department within your own business, it’s much easier to keep everyone on the same page.

2. Keep staff happy with rules based dispatching

No employee likes to be contacted after hours if there’s not a good reason for doing so. To avoid unhappy staff and stay efficient, set up rules based dispatching within your script so operators only reach out for actual emergencies.

A good way to do this is through adding screening questions to help route calls appropriately. For example, a property management company may only want to be reached if a unit is flooded or the heat goes out in the middle of winter. Operators at your call center can ask the caller what the issue is, and based on a list of options, can choose the appropriate one and follow the protocol accordingly. If the caller is locked out, the operators may direct them to call a locksmith. If the caller’s microwave isn’t working, the operators may instruct them to call back during business hours. However, if the caller’s kitchen sink is overflowing, the operators can reach out to the on-call tech if you’ve defined that as an emergency.

Call center scripts and dispatching protocols can be customized based off of your company’s needs, and adding screening questions allows operators to have more control over what gets dispatched and what can wait until the morning.

3. Reduce customer wait time for urgent issues

If a customer is dealing with an emergency, they’re not going to be happy about sitting on hold or leaving a voicemail and waiting for a return call. Using dispatching to reduce the time between the initial request and the resolution is essential in creating the best customer experience possible. We recommend you:

• Add automation: Adding an upfront greeting which directs callers to press 1 for emergencies or 2 for all other calls is a simple way to cut down on operator talk time and allows customers in an emergency situation to get help right away. Businesses may also want to include what constitutes an emergency in their recorded greeting so that not everyone is pressing 1 just to talk to someone.
• Add a driving question: A driving question is a question call center operators can ask in your initial greeting which helps drive the call. For example, an operator may say: “Hello and thank you for calling ABC Plumbing. Are you having an emergency?” If the caller says yes, the operator can then ask what the issue is and if an actual emergency, can dispatch the call accordingly. If the caller’s issue is not an urgent issue, they can take a message to have their call returned when the office re-opens.
• Add an emergency phone number: Some businesses may even want to keep urgent requests and normal queries totally separate by using two different numbers. For example, one number may be advertised on a business’s website for new customers to call, and existing customers may be given an alternate number to call for urgent matters. Having two different numbers helps streamline urgent calls, and makes it easier to differentiate between new and existing customer messages.

4. Advertise 24/7 responsiveness

Nothing keeps customers happy like 24/7 support. If you’re using a call center and have enabled a dispatching protocol, you can advertise 24 hour service and support to your end users. Even if they’re not having an emergency, it’s always nice to talk to a live voice instead of a voicemail to help answer questions or just to leave a message. And, for customers who may be located in a different time zone or who are too busy during the day to call, it can be frustrating when they can never get a hold of a real person.

If your business doesn’t have the budget to hire over night staff, call centers offer an affordable alternative to give your business the 24/7 advantage without all of the added expenses so you and your customers can rest easy.

What is call center dispatching? It’s great when it’s done right.

The ability to dispatch calls is something just about any call center does. Whether the call center agent is dispatching a call to another group inside the call center (think sales call turned into a service call so the agent transfers to another queue) or to your staff member, it means a better customer experience and improved productivity.

The post What is Call Center Dispatching appeared first on SAS Call Center.

Here at SAS we put “what if” to the test, and imagined which fictional worlds would make the best – or worst – locations to have a call center.

We’ve listed fictional towns and worlds so fantastic, you’d wish your call center was located there. On the other extreme, you’ll find some of the worst places to have a call center – worlds you’d be glad they are fictional.

From the snowy hills of the North Pole to the war-torn cities of Westeros, which world do you think would rank among the rest? Begin your journey to find the best call center location by clicking the image below or clicking here:

The post 22 of the Best and Worst Fictional Places to Have a Call Center appeared first on SAS Call Center.

What is a call center queue?

“Your call is very important to us. Please hold for the next representative.” If you’ve ever heard that when calling a business, you’ve been placed in a hold queue. Essentially, a hold queue is a lineup of callers waiting for their call to be answered by a live agent, and unfortunately people experience them every day.

To help combat hold times and decrease call abandonment rates, call centers work with various technologies to help make sure callers are helped as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Through the use of FIFO (first in, first out), operators are able to assist the callers in their lineup who have been waiting the longest. In addition, ACD (automatic call distributions) allow calls to be distributed to specific agents depending on the type of call, for example:

• Spanish or bilingual agents: Spanish speakers could press 1 to be connected to a bilingual rep. Through the ACD, that call would automatically be assigned to the next available bilingual representative.
• Female only: For businesses or organizations that cater to a female population like OBGYNs or sexual assault hotlines, you may want to see if your call center can route your calls to a female only population.
• Remote agents: To help cut down on queue times, many call centers will hire remote agents to work from home. However, these agents may not be able to access all of the same systems that in-house agents can. So, particular accounts that don’t require agents to access websites or internal software can be routed out to remote agents.
• More experienced agents: Just like with any other profession, some agents are just better than others, which means they can handle more advanced accounts. Routing complex accounts to the experienced agents will allow less experienced agents to handle more basic accounts, getting them on and off the phone quickly.

ACD systems make it easy for staff to triage calls which will help the call center cut down on queue times. Additionally, call center reps that are able to resolve issues through first call resolution tactics can help decrease the amount of call backs, thus reducing holds.

Are no hold times a thing?

Although your small mom and pop shop may not have holds, things are a bit different at the call center level. Essentially, call centers always have calls coming to them, and unless the call center has thousands of agents available to answer at any given time, there are going to be  occasional holds.

However, a call center that is on top of monitoring various statistics will have significantly lower hold times than other call centers who are not as equipped. Some examples of monitored statistics include:

• Average talk time: By monitoring the average talk time, aka the average amount of time agents are spending on phone calls, call center managers are able to distribute calls more evenly among other distributions of agents.
• Average peak time: Generally speaking, all call centers have peak times of when they get large influxes of calls. This could be in the morning, it could be in the afternoon, or it could be both. When a call center is able to prepare for those peak times, they can staff up accordingly and thus decrease holds.
• Number of agents: The number of agents currently answering phones has a direct correlation to the amount of holds there are, or aren’t. Since call centers can’t control who will call out sick each day, they must monitor all available agents, and coordinate with them to ensure not too many operators are leaving their workstations at once to go to the bathroom, on break, etc. Some agents may be asked to come in early, stay late, or even come in on their day off.
• Previous volume: While call center managers can’t predict the future, they can get a general idea of volume by looking at and comparing previous dates. For example, if a holiday is approaching, a call center can look at the amount of calls that came in last year for that holiday and guesstimate the amount of agents that will be needed this year.

If call queues can’t be avoided, can they be made tolerable?

While queues can’t be totally eliminated, they can definitely be made more tolerable through a number of different ways, including:

• Customized greetings: If your call center is experiencing a hold, you don’t want your customers to go right to hold music, as they may not know that they’ve even reached the right place. By adding a custom greeting that says your company name, customers will be less likely to hang up.
• Upbeat hold music: Elevator music is great for when you’re on an elevator, but it’s not so great to listen to when you’re on hold, especially if it’s for more than a few seconds. Businesses that have upbeat hold music have a higher chance of callers staying on the line. Switching up your music every so often is also a nice change of pace!
• IVR systems: Automated systems like IVR allows the caller to help themselves if speaking to a live person isn’t necessary, like if they’re calling to check an account balance.
• Virtual queuing software: Allows  the caller to listen to an automated message which informs them of the estimated wait time. From here the caller can decide to wait, they can decide to leave a message, or they can opt for a call back. So, even though the caller has to wait for assistance, they are able to decide the method in which they choose to wait
• Custom hold messages: While some call centers allow their customers to add custom greetings, some call centers may allow the businesses they serve to add custom hold messages or music, Your message could say something like “Thank  you for calling ABC Plumbing, we’re experiencing some unusual holds at the moment but if you hang tight we’ll be with you in a moment.”

How can I protect a call center from having hold times?

Believe it or not, as a customer you have more power over the hold times the call center experiences than you think.

• Alert your call center of volume spikes: If you’re expecting a large spike in call volume for something like a telethon or a new campaign you’re airing, let your call center know at least 2 weeks in advance so they can staff up accordingly.
• Alert your call center of any changes: If you typically use your call center after hours but will be going on vacation or expecting a bad storm and will be forwarding around the clock, let your call center know as far in advance as possible so they can prepare for the change.
• Maintain a great knowledge base to reduce calls: The best way to reduce customer calls is to allow callers to help answer their own questions via a help desk they can access online. First you’ll need to determine what questions people are asking the most, and then write articles that answer those questions. The articles could include tutorials like how your customers can pay a bill online or make a change in their portal, or maybe they could include frequently asked questions about your capabilities and other general information.
• Keep your information up to date to eliminate calls: In addition to maintaining an online help desk, you’ll also want to make sure all of that data stays up to date. That means if something changes within your business, like your prices, you’ll want to make sure that information is changed everywhere. The last thing you want is to have conflicting information listed throughout your website, as that causes more confusion and thus more phone calls!
• Open alternate channels for support: Live support is great, but it’s not the only means of communication. Some users prefer speaking through live chat, email, or even helping themselves via an automated system. You can not only cut down on your own call lengths, but you can also help cut down on queues while giving your customers multiple options for support.
• Listen to recordings and optimize scripts: If your call center allows you to listen to your calls via an online portal, listen to them! These calls will give you great insight into what is working and what is not. If you’re having your operators ask an unnecessary amount of questions for each call, it’s not only going to annoy your callers and eat up your time, but it’s also going to take them away from answering other calls – thus adding to the queue.

The post What is Call Center Queue Time and What Impacts It? appeared first on SAS Call Center.

‘Customer journey management’ is the latest buzz word in the customer service universe. As customer touch points increase, companies find it difficult to monitor and effectively respond to customer interactions through multimodal omnichannels. However, those that can effectively orchestrate the customer’s journey and personalize their interactions reap rich rewards in terms of customer loyalty and increased operational effectiveness. New age contact center technologies and software play a crucial role in capturing customer interactions from various channels. They can even help predict where customers are on their journey. Here are a few to consider incorporating into your business:

1. Omnichannel Desktop: Instead of engaging separate teams to interact with customer queries from different channels, contact centers are now looking at a customer centric approach. Agents are allocated based on customer characteristics, no matter what the channel is. An omnichannel desktop provides a single view of the customer’s journey and allows agents to engage with the customer based on crucial insights their history. This way, agents can optimize the interaction, and increase the chances of cross sales and up sales by customizing offers exclusively for the customer.

2. Personalized Self-Service: Software tools from providers such as Genesys allow contextual and personalized self-service for each customer, cutting across channels and allowing seamless transition to assisted service.

3. Knowledge Management: An effective knowledge management platform is vital to successful omnichannel customer service. This would provide agents and customers alike with proactive contextual knowledge in assisted and self-service situations.

4. Omnichannel Callback: Today’s customer is highly demanding and does not want to be kept waiting. Rather, they would prefer the convenience of requesting a callback – be it from your website, mobile app or answering service. Omnichannel callback allows you to serve customers on their channel of choice, and at their convenience.

5. Analytics & Monitoring: Customer journey analytics and monitoring tools provide insights into the customer’s journey that can predict their behavior patterns and respond effectively. This enhances the customer’s experience, resulting in increased loyalty and a stronger bottom line for the enterprise.

Multi-channel touch points have greatly complicated the end-to-end customer journey. A modern call center infrastructure that aims to be customer centric should consider an all-in-one, open standards software platform from a single vendor. This approach will:

• Reduce multi-vendor complexity
• Allow for increased flexibility and agility
• Provide visibility and operational control across multiple sites with centralized administration

Empowering agents with the tools discussed above will enable contextual customer interactions at every point in the omnichannel journey, thereby benefitting both the enterprise and the customer.

The post The top 5 tools for successful omnichannel customer journey management. appeared first on SAS Call Center.

While first generation analytics focused on structured data analysis, newer solutions help in analyzing unstructured data, such as speech. More than 95% of call center transactions are unstructured and difficult to analyze. But speech analytics applications structure these interactions and aim to identify customer insights hidden within phone conversations. This supports a customer-centric approach, delivering products and services that are most suited for the customer at the right time and through the right channel. Customer-centric sales eventually lead to enhanced customer loyalty and improved business profitability.

Speech analytics works by searching unstructured audio data to identify patterns in meta-data. These patterns may be word choices, word tempo, callers’ emotions, or preference for competitors’ products, and are assessed on a near real-time basis to help agents improve performance metrics. Understanding callers’ emotions allows businesses to segment customers into different profiles based on their response to upsell and cross-sell efforts. This way, the business can sell more effectively, without upsetting the customers or sounding too ‘pushy’.

With more and more businesses recognizing the power of this technology, its use is skyrocketing. In fact, DMG Consulting reports that adoption of speech analytics in call centers grew by 26% from 2013 to 2014. For successful implementation, it is essential to have a planned approach, and a dedicated team of experts who are trained to interpret the software output into actionable steps for the enterprise and the call center. After all, what’s the point of analytics if you don’t act on them?

Speech analytics serves to improve sales and support by providing opportunities for emotion-driven contextual sales efforts. The insights obtained from speech analytics also aide in improving contact center operations in terms of instituting best practices and refining sales scripts. While speech analytics is a promising technological advancement, it is still in its infancy as far as commercial call center usage is concerned. That being said, commercial success stories do exist. Just ask Bluegreen VacationsTM and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters what it did for their profit margins and agent productivity.

Have you implemented speech analytics in your contact center?

The post Leveraging Speech Analytics in the Call Center for Enhanced Business Profitability. appeared first on SAS Call Center.

You’re vacationing in New Orleans when you are stung by a bee and your airway begins to swell. You need a shot of epinephrine right away, so your spouse dials 9-1-1.

Scenario 2.

It’s July in L.A. You’re having a barbecue out by the pool when suddenly Uncle Jim, who had been complaining of tightness in his chest, doubles over and loses consciousness. Common sense says that in order to get Uncle Jim the help he needs and fast, you should dial 9-1-1.

Since 9-1-1 service was implemented in 1968, state by state, we’ve been taught to dial it in case of emergency. Whether it’s a fire, a crime, a heart attack, or an accident, 9-1-1 is the fastest, most effective way to receive lightning speed assistance. But is that really the case?

Section 3.1 of the National Emergency Number Association’s (NENA) Call Answering Standard states that 90% of all 9-1-1 calls arriving at the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) should be answered within ten (10) seconds during the busy hour (the hour each day with the greatest call volume), and 95% of all 9-1-1 calls should be answered within twenty (20) seconds. Yet in some places, that benchmark may as well be written in the sand. Research indicates that for many cities across the nation, calling 9-1-1 when you are in jeopardy is a crapshoot. And even if operators do get to the phone in a timely fashion, it doesn’t necessarily mean help will arrive before things go south.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of the reasons why some areas’ 911 emergency response service needs some help.

911 Call Center Locations: New Orleans

Back in 2010, budget cuts forced New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas to lay off almost half of New Orleans Police Department’s 9-1-1 operators, leading to a significantly understaffed call center.

They are so understaffed, in fact, that according to an internal report, there have been instances where callers had to wait over 8 minutes for help. In addition, several hundred people each month hang on the line for more than a minute before anyone picks up. Making matters worse, call center attrition rates are high (the turnover rate in 2013 was a whopping 50%) and it takes about 4 months to train new operators. So, with 440,000 calls received every year, and only 36 call center operators as of March 2014, those odds are pretty bad.

While there is a nationwide standard measure for answering a 9-1-1 call, there is no nationwide standard for measuring emergency response time – in other words, the amount of time elapsed between when emergency services personnel are dispatched, and when they begin treatment.

According to a study of the country’s 50 largest cities, by only reporting the time it takes for an emergency crew to drive to the scene, many cities distort the actual time passed from the initial phone call to the moment the patient receives care. L.A. is one of those cities.

911 Call Center Locations: Los Angeles

In early 2010, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department slashed its budget by $128 million, resulting in an obvious declination in response times. While in 2009 the response time for a 9-1-1 call was 4.9 minutes, by the end of 2010, it had grown to almost 6 minutes.

The Los Angeles Fire Department hasn’t fared much better. A 2012 investigation found that the LAFD fell short of the national standard requiring that rescue units be notified within 1 minute on at least 90% of 9-1-1 calls. The analysis showed that between 2007 and 2012, medical emergency call processing time increased considerably.

One problem may be that callers have to jump through hoops before a dispatcher can send help. An abundance of long and confusing questions await the 9-1-1 caller, and dispatchers are forced to follow protocol, asking each question and recording an answer before the computer program will allow them to get to the “dispatch” part. However, this extensive series of questions was developed following the 1987 death of a Chatsworth woman, who died because 9-1-1 operators didn’t ask the right questions and all but dismissed the family’s three calls for help.

Dr. Jeff Clawson, a Utah physician and expert in dispatch protocol, was hired by the LAFD to implement this architecture – a system that is also used by many cities across the country as well as internationally.

So, in the Chatsworth case, the flippant operators were flawed. And maybe the system was, too. Regardless, you can’t examine 9-1-1 protocol and response times without factoring in human error.

911 Call Center Locations: New York & Denver

In a 2013 crash resulting in the death of a 4-year old girl, New York’s 9-1-1 system wasn’t at fault. The dispatcher was. A call for help came in at 8:15 a.m. after the child had been hit on the sidewalk by a teenager in an SUV, who was fleeing from police. That call sat on the dispatcher’s computer screen until 8:19 a.m., when another dispatcher noticed it.

It appears that at some point, the dispatcher got up from his desk and thus, did not see the call come across his computer screen. Sadly, the 4-minute delay in sending out the ambulance proved to be too many minutes for that little girl.

On April 14 of this year, a Denver woman, at home with her husband and three young children, called 9-1-1 reporting that her husband was high and talking like it was the end of the world. He had asked her to retrieve his gun from the safe and shoot him. She relayed the urgency of the situation to the operator, asking her to “please hurry” and send officers because she was afraid of what he might do.

The woman held on the line for nearly 13 minutes before her husband went to retrieve the gun himself, and shot her in the head. Now, while officials say that a 13-minute response time is average for Denver, which is about the amount of time it took for the first officer to arrive on the scene, in this case the dispatcher failed to verbally convey the seriousness of the Priority 1 call. Patrol cars are outfitted with computers, and as information from 9-1-1 is typed into the system, it appears on screen. The trouble is, it’s not safe for officers to be en route to a scene while simultaneously trying to read the computer screen. Had the dispatcher provided verbal updates, a woman’s life may have been saved. At the termination hearing following the incident, the dispatcher tendered her resignation, and her dismissal letter was withdrawn.

Dispatcher error in New York and Denver. Antiquated intake systems in Oregon and Philadelphia. Even glitches in new call center programming. Any number of things could cause delays in emergency response services, and budget cuts seem to be a common scenario for many cities, including New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. But what happens when your city literally goes bankrupt?

911 Call Center Locations: Detroit

When a 9-1-1 call comes in, every second counts, especially in the case of cardiac arrest. Did you know that emergency medical systems in a majority of the United States’ 50 largest cities save only 6% to 10% of victims of sudden cardiac arrest?

The Mayo Clinic reports that once the heart has short-circuited and is in the unstable rhythm known as ventricular fibrillation (v-fib for short), the patient has approximately six minutes to live unless the heart is shocked back into stable rhythm. Six minutes! So, if you’re planning on having a heart attack, make sure you’re not in Detroit when it happens.

Of course no one plans to have a heart attack, or any other serious injury or condition. But if you live in Detroit, you’d better start planning your own 9-1-1 hierarchy, consisting of family, friends, or neighbors who can come to your rescue. Citizens joke about the odds of an ambulance appearing quickly, if at all. With an amassed $18 billion dollar debt and Chapter 9 filing, residents have said that the city is past being a city – it’s just plain gone.

For Priority 1 calls, situations that require immediate attention, Detroit’s police department averaged a 58-minute response time in 2013, and only 10 to 14 of the city’s 36 ambulances were in service. It’s no wonder citizens have taken it upon themselves to find their own way to the hospital. With abandoned firehouses, vacant streets, and certain neighborhoods in Detroit continuously making the infamous most dangerous neighborhoods in America list, people simply know better than to rely on 9-1-1. One man stated, “If you have a heart attack, you’re dead. There is no such thing around here as ‘in case of emergency.’ ”

Well, after that brief and rather scary tour of 9-1-1, what’s the moral of the story? It depends on how things shake out in your neck of the woods. The advent of 9-1-1 has most certainly saved more lives than anyone could count; however, no matter how successful your city’s emergency services department is, it never hurts to have your own contingency plan, especially during citywide emergencies. And if you live in a place that has a rotten track record, you might want to think twice before dialing 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency. It could get you killed.

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