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What is a contract emergency call center?

When there is an emergency in your area and the police or other government agency need to get out some information in a very short time, the phone has always worked the best for them. But when you have more residents in your area than your current phone systems can handle, what does the city officials do?

They outsource is what they do. They hire a company that can make the calls for them in the time of need. They have hired a third party vender to become their contract emergency call center.

You may think this is uncommon or you have never heard of it, but it is not something that is publicly announced usually. One example is Palo Alto, California. They had a mountain lion roaming around the city and the city officials wanted to let their residents know and as quickly as possible. However, the city's current automated system only handles approximately 2500 calls per hour. Unfortunately the city has over 26,000 residents and many of those households have more than one phone line. Because the current system would have taken more than half the day to contact all the phone lines in the city, this was considered not acceptable. So what was Palo Alto to do if this situation happened again?

They choose to go through a third party vender in a different city that could provide them with a contract emergency call center. If this situation arises again, the third party vender will provide additional phone power which helps the Palo Alto reach hundreds of residents at one time.

This is just one example of a city using a contract emergency call center. There are many more you just do not realize it. Also some cities use emergency call centers to contract out work for 911 dispatchers, especially during times of emergencies. These outsourcing third party venders can be used for national and local government agencies.

So know the next time you get a call from a police department with a warning of a mountain lion or something similar in your area, or an oncoming weather emergency, the person you speak to might just work for an outsourced third party contract emergency call center. They are there to help you and keep you safe.