CUSTOMER SERVICE: A NEW CONCEPT IN THE FIRE SERVICE?
BY FRANCIS X. HOLT
Every so often, it seems that when the fire service has too much time on its hands or finds the need to “innovate,” it comes up with a new buzzword. The latest is “customer service.” Sounds like the return desk at a discount store or where you call when you have a problem with your credit card bill. But in the fire service? It seems to me the fire service has been delivering positively sterling service to its customers for as long as it has been in existence. A hallmark of the fire service is a positive attitude among its members toward the delivery of service. Try getting your credit card company to address your billing problems at 4 a.m.–in a freezing drizzle. See if your average discount store expects its employees to put themselves at risk to deliver customer satisfaction–on a volunteer basis.
I am not saying that your discount store and your credit card company don`t measure up when it comes to customer service–just that using this term in the fire service is a pretentious exercise. At best, you wind up comparing apples with oranges. Saving people`s lives, putting yourself at risk, and giving up lots of time (if you are a volunteer) simply do not lend themselves to examination within the framework of customer service as we know it.
Bringing in other aspects of assistance to people in the community (such as changing tires or providing transportation) as part of the fire service`s mission is problematic in many ways. For one thing, these examples have always been “extras” that are not part of the mission. It is for that reason that they take on more significance when offered: Nobody is suggesting you do them as part of your everyday duties. When you offer them spontaneously, that`s nice. When you don`t, it is not because your department doesn`t have the right attitude toward customer service. It is because those types of services are not what the fire department does!
There is also the matter of opportunity costs associated with providing extra services. If you have the resources committed to activities that are not part of the fire service`s primary mission, the resources are not available to perform that mission. Further, there are also matters of contracts, job descriptions, and injuries sustained while rendering “customer service.”
ACTING NICE
At worst, however, there is a much more insidious force at work among some of the recent proponents of “customer service.” That is the problem with attitude formation that occurs when your chief tells you that customer service means acting one way when you are feeling another way. Psychologists talk about the problem of “cognitive dissonance,” which occurs when two competing beliefs are held at the same time. In the case of fire service customer service, some interpret the concept as smiling and “making nice” to the public when in earshot and then sounding off and expressing how you really feel on the way back to quarters. This approach is condescending at best and engenders extremely negative attitudes at worst.
I suppose some of you are saying, “So what do you recommend? That we tell everybody exactly how we feel?” Of course, just by asking, you must know this is not really a good idea, either. The correct range of options, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle.
Think about it. You go to a “food on the stove.” The resident was trying a new recipe that called for baking an apple pie in a brown paper bag; as a result, the house filled with smoke. You keep smiling throughout the incident and, following the customer service recommendations of the chief, wait until you are a few blocks away before expounding on what a moron the baker is. The more you do this, with the blessings of some customer service gurus, the further you remove yourself from the people you protect. Soon you divide the world into two groups–the morons and you. You also make it less likely that you will be aware of signs of burnout, as such cynicism becomes the institutionally accepted norm. So what do you do?
DEFINE MISSION; EDUCATE YOURSELF
First, be aware of what the mission of your department is. If you offer other amenities, that`s nice but not necessary. Next, if you find yourself slipping into the “us and them” frame of mind, talk about it with somebody you respect who knows the job. It is not a happy feeling to be carrying around, thinking that you are not able to count on anybody who is not in the fire service, thinking that most people are stupid.
A good deal of the work of the fire service lies in prevention and education. If you find yourself coming face to face with negative feelings, the answer is not to “act” positive. The amount of energy it takes to control this internal conflict (between what you feel and what you show) is draining.
If you, in the professional act of monitoring your own performance, identify consistently negative feelings after dealing with certain citizen groups (mentally ill, chemically impaired, culturally different), don`t simply accept these feelings as okay because they`re your feelings. Challenge yourself to become more educated about these groups.
Learn, for example, that many chemically impaired people are not “hapless” and their problems not “self-induced.” Learn that there are biological differences between addicts and nonaddicts. Compare your attitude toward alcoholics with your attitude toward diabetics. Why is one disorder worthy of scorn and another of compassion?
The same type of self-inquiry into attitudes about mental illness may find that you not only stop referring to people as “nuts” but that you carry yourself in a way that suggests more wisdom and gratitude and less smugness. Initially, this is harder work than simply “acting nice.” However, in the long run, you have done yourself and your community a far better (customer) service.
INHERENTLY PEOPLE-ORIENTED
There is a school of thought that believes most firefighters are more oriented to the technical and tactical aspects of the job than they are to the human component. I have met, talked with, consulted to, trained, and learned from thousands of firefighters in the past 25 years. It has always struck me that their interest in the “toys” was driven by their interest in people. Firefighters get a bigger rush from a save with an old aluminum ladder carried on a 20-year-old pumper than they ever do from extinguishing an unoccupied building fire with the latest and greatest apparatus. And that, I believe, is true “customer service.” n
FRANCIS X. HOLT is the author of Emergency Communications Management (Fire Engineering Books, 1991) and more than three dozen articles on public safety issues. He is a registered nurse and an expert witness in dispatcher liability cases. Holt has trained dispatchers from and consulted for hundreds of fire, EMS, and police departments throughout the United States and Canada. He is the president of FXH Consulting of Wolfeboro Falls, New Hampshire.
