CLEVELAND — You may not think fast food restaurants would have anything to teach law enforcement, but some police departments are starting to take a page out of the industry’s customer service handbook.
The Westlake Police Department is among the latest to approach encounters with the public as interactions with customers.
“We’re dealing with people who are calling the police department for a reason. We want to make sure we empathize with their problems and what they need and we want to provide that service for them,” said Westlake Captain Jerry Vogel.
The department hired The DiJulius Group, a Cleveland-based customer experience consulting agency, to help teach the tenets of good customer service to officers and staff.
Owner and President John DiJulius explained, “We're not saying when anyone's life is in danger, you should be saying ‘certainly’ and ‘my pleasure’ and ‘the customer's always right.’ I've never agreed with that. You can be human first and professional second. You can show empathy.”
The agency’s first time working with law enforcement was in 2020 when a police chief from Charlotte, North Carolina reached out asking for help building a customer experience similar to its clients Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, and the Ritz-Carlton.
“He called me and asked me if I had ever worked with policing or law enforcement. I said, ‘No, we never had up till that point.’ But I said I could probably find just someone who has. He said, ‘No, you're exactly what we're looking for. We want someone with no law enforcement background. We want a totally outside, different perspective,’” DiJulius said.
Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department (CMPD) Chief Johnny Jennings was inspired to change his approach in 2020. His father and brother had died within months of each other and police-community relations were strained as protests erupted nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
“I just happened to have a run-in, drive by a Chick-fil-A to get something to eat with my wife. And that experience alone, the customer service that was presented to me was enough to take my mind off of everything else that was going on,” Jennings said.
Jennings worked with the DiJulius Group to incorporate a customer experience unit into its training requirements. All CMPD staff take part in the training and the department has adopted the action statement, “Leave a positive impression and earn a genuine thank you.”
“In their minds, they should be thinking, ‘How can I leave this interaction with a positive impact?’” Jennings said of his officers.
He said the training applied to 97% of CMPD’s interactions that do not result in an arrest.
Dr. Ronnie Dunn, an associate professor of urban studies and executive director of the Diversity Institute at Cleveland State University, has studied police-community relations. In 2007, his research found officer demeanor was a top complaint to Cleveland’s Civilian Review Board.
“There's research that shows when people are treated in a manner that they consider to be fair and where they're heard and respected, they are more willing to accept even negative outcomes,” said Dunn. “So even negative interactions with the police or the criminal justice system are more well received when a person is treated with dignity and respect.
He applauded the efforts to include customer service skills in police training, calling it a step toward building bridges.
“This is how you begin to build and lay that foundation to improve that relationship. And it's about building mutual respect, and then trust,” he said.
Jennings believes the approach can be adapted for law enforcement agencies nationwide, but he also said customer service should be part of a larger cultural shift.
“The commitment is going to take a lot of time, it’s going to take a lot of effort. And if you’re not willing to do that, you’re not going to be successful,” he said.
In the first year since implementing the training, CMPD’s ‘customer service rating’ has gone from 43% to 84%. The department tagged 1,600 positive community interactions recorded on body-worn cameras.
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