Customer Service in the Fire Department

[FireCritic]

I am wondering if your department has a public relations department that prides itself on customer service, and if your dept. does, then what do you think about it.

Example:

After a fire, how far will your department go to assist the "homeless" family(s)?
Do you constantly INVITE schools by the fire house?
Do your personnel go to eat with the school children?
Do you have a decent fire prevention program?
Do you install smoke detectors or give them out to needy families?
Do you install proper house numbering if the residents do not have it before clearing up from a call?
Do your on duty crews participate with community events?
Should the public expect all this out of you and everything else that you do?

More and more are asked of us firefighters. I am wondering how you are taking it. After all we are public service right. How far will we go before we can't take anymore? Can we handle the load that they place on us now? Should we take it upon ourselves to incorporate these "customer service" items in our daily lives at the fire house?


I am not saying whether it is right or wrong, good or bad. I would like to know what your dept. does( career,volunteer,combination).

[RyanEMVFD]

we go to the local school couple of times a year for different events. as for fires afterwards we have a little pamplet that we get from the fema website on what to do after a fire. usually if it's close to our fishfry I'll give the family some tickets, it's not much but as poor as my dept is we don't have much to spare. our community is small so everyone knows everyone there, at least it seems that way.

yes we could have a better customer service program but it could be worse.

we are an all volunteer fire department.

[cozmosis]

My chief is a big fan of Alan Brunacini... so we usually go out of our way to provide top customer service. This includes lots of service calls to help folks with smoke detectors. It also includes plenty of safety presentations for civic groups and schools. We also go to one local elementary school and teach a monthly class on safety. There is little we won't do.

For the most part, I have no problem with providing such service. It seems to me that so many people get on the job and forget who they work for -- the citizens. We're here to serve... and I'm happy to do it (as long as equipment and personnel aren't taken out of service unnecessarily).