99 per cent not good enough – Police Commish
Published:Monday | November 13, 2023 | 12:05 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
In its efforts to deliver good-quality service to its clients, the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has a very slim margin of error and must consistently aim for top marks, Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson said on Thursday, while addressing a handover ceremony hosted by the National Certification Body of Jamaica at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.
The JCF has been ISO 9001:2015 certified for more than one year in keeping with its transformation mandate, with its 119 emergency call centre one of the areas which came in for special attention during the quality management system audits. Commissioner Anderson used the occasion to underscore the importance of getting its interactions with the public right, every time.
“If we get it right with our customers 99 per cent of the time, do you know many customers we got it wrong with?” he asked.
“If we get it right 99 per cent of the time from the beginning of the year to the end of October, it means we have 23,000 dissatisfied customers because we got 2.3 million calls to that centre between January and October. So 99 per cent correct means we have 23,000 people out there saying that they not getting good service. So what does that mean for us?
“If it’s 99.09 per cent we have 2,300 people going on social media to tell you what bad experiences they had. So what do we have to aim for? Ninety nine point nine nine per cent. How is that for a challenge?”
Message of quality
The top cop pointed out that ‘bad news always has legs’ as people tend to talk more about it, while good news takes a little more time to gain traction. What that means from the JCF perspective is that it must engage at all times in effective communication with its clientèle, which is all of Jamaica.
“We have to communicate these things. So part of our journey in quality was to create a communications mechanism that can carry the message of quality – internally in the organisation and externally and so one of our places that had to be certified was our communications ... Then you start to look at how to become a quality organisation. What does it mean and how does it manifest, given our room for error and given what we have to manage?”
He continued, “As we went through the process, we had some really great teams working on it. Whatever your journey is, big or small, if the boss or the CEO is not interested it cannot happen because what you are doing is creating change. Change comes with friction. You have to have the force, the energy, the push to overcome the friction of change. As it starts to get momentum then you can start to let things go, so you need a good team.”
In that regard, Anderson singled out Deputy Commissioner of Police Kevin Blake for his stellar leadership in heading the quality management system committee.
“He’s been carrying a lot of the load for me, in regards to the day-to-day stuff. The meetings, late nights, trying to audit things, do corrections and take corrective actions. So I have a really good team.”