A report on Metro Nashville's 911 call center has shown a growing number of people who call dispatch weren't happy with the service they got.
When you call 911, the voice on the other line is there to guide you through a moment that could mean the difference between life or death, but now a new report on Metro Nashville's 911 call center shows a growing number of people who have called 911 are not satisfied with the service they're getting.
The annual study, performed by a research group, and included in the call center's internal report, said the call center has an 86% satisfaction rate. That’s a lower rate than two years ago, when the group had a 93 percent satisfaction rate.
The Emergency Communications Center said the average time it took for them to answer a call was 12 seconds, that's more than the national average of 10 seconds.
The ECC said another reason people interpret poor service at the emergency communications center is all the questions dispatchers are asking, assuming that help hasn't already been dispatched when in reality it has.
They said they'll continue training to get the satisfaction rate higher.
One problem they said that can cut down on the time it takes for dispatchers to answer a 911 call was to cut down on the number of non-emergency calls they get, or even worse, the number of accidental calls to 911.
“That takes a lot of time, because if there's anything on the line to indicate they may be having trouble -- you can hear some banging noises and its where they’re doing construction -- but if you can't differentiate between that and someone getting beat up, now you’ve got to stop everything and start to trace that back,” said dispatcher Rick Beasley.
The 911 call center director said they have been approved for five new calltaker positions, and they're taking applications starting in August.
