Who is the customer?

Americans are born customers. No other society in history has placed so many diverse products and services before its citizens. Children become ingrained with the basic concepts of consumerism before they learn to tie their shoes. Corporations spend literally billions of dollars a year attempting to determine what their customers want. In general, our culture places a strong emphasis on the bond between the providers of goods and services and their customers.

Why then, do law enforcement agencies have such difficulty identifying what their customers want? Indeed, it seems that the police have lost sight of who the customer really is. This confusion seriously hampers the ability of law enforcement to control crime and protect communities. If we cannot identify who our customers are and what they want, how can we adequately serve them?

Identifying the Customer

In the bygone days of 1950s America, police officers maintained close ties with the citizens they served. In the fictional television town of Mayberry, Sheriff Andy Taylor understood very clearly who his customers were: The citizens of Mayberry. While conditions in the real world may never have been quite so idyllic, individuals who began a policing career in the 1960s and 1970s nonetheless have witnessed a vast change in the way law enforcement does business.

Most important, our perception of the customer changed from citizen to criminal. Granted, many of the forces that led to this shift were external, nurtured by rising crime rates and a simultaneous shift toward leniency within the criminal justice system. By the 1970s, the role of the police in society had shifted from proactive to almost exclusively reactive. As part of this transformation, wrongdoers became the main focus of attention within law enforcement. Criminals, in a sense, became the customers. Law enforcement became preoccupied with criminals, while relegating its true customers - citizens - to second-class.

Any business that subscribed to such thinking would soon be out of business. But, law enforcement internalized this odd view into nearly every facet of its operations. Citizens, once a primary focus of law enforcement, became regarded as outsiders, meddlesome at best, troublesome at worst.

As a profession, law enforcement must rediscover its true customer base. Successful corporations devote a considerable portion of their budgets to this effort and spend a great deal of time determining what their customers want. Of course, individual law enforcement agencies do not possess the resources of major corporations, but that should not stop them from identifying their customers' needs. By taking some small steps, agencies can revitalize their relationship with the citizens they serve.

Determining Customer Needs

The first step is to determine what to ask customers. For example, to gauge the crime problem in certain areas, it may be helpful to find out if residents have been victimized or have seen criminal activity in their neighborhoods within a certain timeframe. It also is a good idea to elicit citizens' opinions regarding possible solutions to problems cited. Regardless of the specific questions asked, the effort to elicit information from customers should represent a long-term commitment on the part of the agency. Several attempts may be required before sufficient relevant feedback is received. In addition, as law enforcement addresses their needs, citizens' views may change.

Three main methods exist to obtain information from customers: Mailings, face-to-face meetings, and telephone calls. Each has distinct advantages and potential drawbacks.

For many agencies, the most practical method is to elicit information through mailed surveys. Citizens may be more forthcoming in citing an agency's shortcomings via an anonymous survey rather than during a personal visit or a telephone call from an officer. Agencies can arrange to have the surveys included with municipal billings or community newsletters. Whatever the distribution method used, surveys should include stamped, self-addressed envelopes for respondents to return.

Face-to-face meetings allow citizens an opportunity to meet and get to know officers. When this approach is used, agencies should place a notice in the newspaper advising citizens of the specific meeting dates. While this method has proven very effective, even in high-crime areas, its success depends largely on the interest and concern exhibited by the interviewing officers. These contacts always should end with some type of support statement. For example, officers should request that citizens back police initiatives developed to address the problems discussed.

Telephone surveys also can be highly effective, and less costly. Agencies easily can select certain areas, even specific streets, to survey. But perhaps the best feature of telephone surveys is that they can be performed by volunteers. Retired residents represent an especially valuable and helpful human resource in this area. And getting volunteers to help solve the problems facing a community is an important step in "winning back" customers.

Regardless of the format, survey questions should be easy to understand and answer. One police agency asked a neighborhood's residents only two questions in its survey: What are the problems in your neighborhood? What can be done to resolve them?

Satisfying Customers: Community-Oriented Policing 

Once an agency surveys its customers, the next step is to respond to their needs. In many ways, this process represents an integral component of community-oriented policing (COP). While COP does not replace traditional law enforcement methods, it does provide a proactive mechanism for agencies to satisfy the needs of their customers. COP is a philosophy that involves the entire department, not just a group of select officers.

In order for COP to succeed, all personnel within an agency should be trained to see the "big picture." This picture consists of citizens working with the police to address common issues and to solve community problems.

Despite the logic of this arrangement, administrators may find officers reluctant to embrace this seemingly simple concept. To ask officers accustomed to vehicle-based patrolling to get out of their squad cars and talk with citizens door-to-door may be an unpopular request. At the beginning, it may not be easy. However, once officers speak with citizens in positive situations, attitudes change. Instead of constantly being bombarded with negative situations, officers have the opportunity to see firsthand that the majority of citizens support the police and their efforts to control crime: As law enforcement responds to the needs of its customers, citizen-police cooperation becomes the basis of a strong community-oriented policing effort.

Conclusion

To address community crime problems adequately, law enforcement must recognize its true customer base. During the past several decades, the police view in this area has become inverted. We have allowed our enemy - the criminal element - to become our primary focus. Meanwhile, our real customers - the citizens we serve - often are viewed as the enemy. For community-oriented policing to be successful, this distorted view must be corrected.

For when it comes to community safety, all of us are customers. Appreciating that we are part of a much larger picture helps us see the value of what we do. The police do not exist for criminals. We are sworn to serve and protect citizens.

Solutions for the problems that face our communities will not come overnight. But we stand a better chance of reaching our goals if we work with citizens rather than against them. The time has come to remember who the customer is, to find out what they want, and to work at finding solutions to community problems together.