[LINK] Lost in the Blue Mountains

[Scott Howard]

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 12:17 AM, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at melbpc.org.au> wrote:

> I have a friend who used to work for an emergency roadside service
> who eventually had to leave because of the 'scripted' nature of
> answering distress calls.


IMHO these calls absolutely need to be scripted.  If they aren't scripted,
then things get missed.

What is needed is for the scripts to be flexible enough to handle the
situations they were not explicitly designed for, and/or to allow the
ability to break out of the script when these situations occur (with
relevant training for the operators to know when to break the script)

The ambulance call centre scripts may well put a high emphasis on getting
the address from the caller, but if 99.99% of all calls they receive do have
a standard address then this makes sense.  What is important is that for the
remaining 0.01% of calls there is a way for both the operator and the system
to understand that "half-way between Narrow Neck and the Ruined Castle" is a
valid "address" when you're lost bushwalking in the Blue Mountains.

  Scott.