Effective handling of Complaints - Optimizing the use of ICT in Law Enforcement

EFFECTIVE HANDLING OF
COMPLAINTS
OPTIMIZING THE USE OF ICT
Ebuka Ugwu
Senior Software Engineer
BuyPower Nigeria 29th August 2019

INFORMATION OFFICERS WORKSHOP - CISLAC
INTRODUCTION
▸ Information Officers have a need to take full advantage of
the benefits of Information & Communication Technology
to improve the complaints handling process
▸ ICT tools provide a relatively easy mechanism to handle
interaction and complaints with the general public, analyze
information, and provide timely and useful feedback
▸ An efficient and effective complaints handling system
increases public confidence and strengthens the
accountability mechanism

THE COMPLAINTS HANDLING SYSTEM
PEOPLE PROCESSES TECHNOLOGY
Information Ofﬁcers
Public Complaint monitoring
and processing frameworks
Calls, Emails, Social Media
Software, etc
The Complaints Handling System consists primarily of People,
Processes & Technology
Focus is on optimizing this system by increasing the effectiveness of
Technology

▸ ICT can increase the efﬁciency of the system in 3 primary
areas:
Complaints Collection Complaints Analysis
Reporting

COMPLAINTS COLLECTION
▸ Complaints are generally collected via the following
channels:
▸ Phone Calls
▸ SMS
▸ Email
▸ Social Media
▸ Twitter
▸ WhatsApp
▸ Facebook

▸ Distribution of Complaints Communication Channels
Others
2.3%
Social Media
26.8%
SMS
2.0% Phone Calls
65.2%
Email
3.7%
- Analysis of CRU Report, StatiSense, 2017

▸ Handling Phone Calls - Software
✦ Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVR) - This is an automated software
telephony system that interacts with callers, gathers information, and routes calls
to the appropriate Information Officers. An IVR System accepts a combination of
voice input and touch-tone keypad selection, and provides the appropriate
responses in the form of voice, callback, SMS and other contact methods.
✦ IVR Systems consist of Telephone equipment, Software applications (for routing,
monitoring and analytics), a database (for recording calls and storing data), and
supporting infrastructure (Cloud Technology).
✦ IVR Systems can greatly improve the efficiency of complaint handling by:
✴ Reducing back-pressure during peak hours by routing calls efficiently to
available Information Officers
✴ Providing clear, concise analytics information that can be accessed at any
time and exported across different formats
✴ Providing hooks for easy inter-operability with existing systems, and future
infrastructure
✓ Notable Nigerian IVR System Providers - Tizeti Communications, SkyFort Nigeria

▸ Social Media Software
✦ The use of Social Media by the general public as a channel for
recording complaints has grown steadily over the last few years.
This has been mostly as a result of the proliferation of ICT-enabled
devices and the advancement of telecommunications technology.
✦ Social Media tools like WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook are
relatively inexpensive to operate and can be used to target and
collect information from a large audience, which can grow
exponentially if utilized properly.
✦ Information Officers can benefit greatly from leveraging the
power of social media due to its relatively shorter turnaround
times, Network Effects, and its powerful potential to change the
public narrative and increase confidence of the general public in
the system.

▸ Twitter, Facebook
✴ 60+ million active Nigerian users in 2019
✴ Interactive message-board styled application for broadcasting information (tweets) to
followers
✴ Metrics - Followers, Likes, Shares (Retweets), Direct Message Resolutions, etc
✴ Tools:
- TweetDeck - Schedule Tweets for maximum impact, tag tweets, messages and
mentions for follow-up and closure
- AgoraPulse - Schedule Social Media Calendar, monitor all tweets, mentions,
comments and messages from a single screen, use standard-compliant templates
to reply tweets and messages
✴ Best Practices
- Reply On Time (ROT) - Improves public conﬁdence and satisfaction
- Provide timely and regular feedback during the lifecycle of the complaint
investigation process, and when it is completed
- Treat all conversations and messages as personal one-on-one conversations. This
provides a level of comfort for the public to provide more information that can
greatly improve the complaint handling process
- Limit excessive use of ofﬁcial language

▸ Website Live-Chat Software & Form Data Collection
▸ Live chat apps are simple software plugins that can be added to agency and
force websites where people can interact directly via instant messaging with
Information Officers to ask questions and lay complaints.
▸ Recent research has shown that websites with live chat plugins are perceived
as more “genuine” and “authentic”, and people are likely to provide lots of
information when interacting with a proactive officer.
▸ Most live chat software are also extendable for seamless integration with
existing complaint handling systems.
▸ Adding Complaint Forms to official websites also provides a relatively
inexpensive way to collect and log complaints from website visitors.
๏ Notable Live Chat Service Providers
✓ Chatra
✓ Live Chat Inc.

COMPLAINTS ANALYSIS
▸ Analysis is a very important part of the Complaint Handling
Process. Analyzing information over time provides insights into
trends and patterns of the kinds of complaints that are more/less
frequent in certain areas, and this data can then be use to
determine targeted action in these areas (trainings, public
outreach, etc) to achieve pre-determined outcomes.
▸ Information collected manually (via physical forms and word of
mouth) are more difﬁcult to analyze as they require a great
amount of human effort to make sense out of them.
▸ However, Digital Information can be recorded, transcribed and fed
into various analytical systems which seamlessly identify patterns
in this data, and makes it easier to report via different channels.

COMPLAINTS ANALYSIS
▸ WHAT GETS MEASURED, GETS DONE!
(EMPTY SLIDE FOR ANALYSIS ILLUSTRATION)

REPORTING
▸ Reporting is the process of organizing data into informational
summaries in order to monitor how different areas of
information relate to each other
▸ Reporting is perhaps, the most critical step in the complaints
handling process
▸ This involves organizing data into spreadsheets, charts,
graphs, plots, tables, etc, to help with understanding data at a
glance.
▸ Simple and Accurate reporting of data, both internally and
externally (via Social Media, Publications, etc) increases
conﬁdence in the complaint handling process.

REPORTING
▸ Reporting Tools
• Microsoft Excel - This widely accessible software is one of the most
powerful reporting tools available in Technology. It combines Analytical &
Graphical tools into one package that can greatly simplify the reports
generation process. EVERY Information Ofﬁcer concerned in the analysis
and reporting sub-process of the complaint handling process will do well to
learn the basics of this software. Training classes and workshops exist
across all states of the country.
• Plotly (https://plot.ly/)- This free web tool is a very friendly and easy-to-use
plotting library. Dynamic Data can be imported across different formats
(excel, csv, text, databases) and plotted on a wide array of rich graphs and
charts for easy consumption on the web and print media. 
Many information centers have embraced this tool in recent times for its
dynamic nature. Data reports can be converted to web links that are easily
sharable on the internet and social media platforms.

REPORTING
Sample of a Data Report by the CRU of the NPF in 2016 on Police Misconduct
This report was shared on Social Media and generated a large amount of positive interaction and feedback

OPPORTUNITIES IN IT FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS
▸ A law enforcement officer with expertise in technology
plans, directs and guides technology decisions for the
department. They do this by applying experience and
knowledge of law enforcement principles and practices in
combination with knowledge of computing and other
technologies to drive growth and efficiency within the
agency.
▸ Currently, a large section of IT projects and decisions in
law enforcement are outsourced to technology agencies.
Outsourcing is relatively expensive, and this presents an
opportunity for officers to handle some of these projects
internally.

▸ Modern Opportunities that exist in IT for Officers include:
๏ Data Science & Analysis: Data has become one of the most valuable assets
in modern times. Law Enforcement Agencies generate huge amounts of
data (crime, identification, cases, etc), and analyzing and understanding
this data is now more important than it has ever been. Officers that gain
expertise in Data Science & Analysis will become indispensable in the
future of Law Enforcement for their ability to improve the efficiency of their
agencies based on Data.
๏ Cyber Security & Cyber Crime Prevention: Cybercrime involves any crime
committed using computers or the internet as its base. These include:
cyberterrorism, computer hacking, fraud, identity theft and child predation.
Cybercrime detectives are officers that have advanced knowledge of IT
systems and software relating to what is being investigated. With the rate
of internet-based crime going up at alarming rates across the world,
cybercrime detectives have become even more necessary in today’s IT-
driven world.

๏ Database Management: Law Enforcement Agencies operate
multiple databases for storing and retrieving information for
internal and external operations. IT officers adept at designing,
managing and updating these database systems are very
important in modern law enforcement.
๏ IT Support: With the ever-increasing amounts of IT hardware and
software being deployed across agencies to fight crime, there will
also be increasing demand for internal IT officers who can help
diagnose, debug and fix these equipment for other areas of the
agency, remotely or in-person

CONCLUSION
▸ It is very commendable that Law Enforcement Agencies
are taking steps to embrace global standards across the
board, especially in ICT, by taking deliberate steps to
solicit and handle complaints from the members of the
public, and giving feedback on actions taken on such
complaints.
▸ The framework for these processes need to be revisited
from time to time to ensure that they meet standard
practice and lead to a more reliable and veriﬁable
progress of all Law Enforcement Agencies in Nigeria.

THANK YOU!

Effective handling of Complaints - Optimizing the use of ICT in Law Enforcement

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