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Government & Public Sector: Public Safety & 911

Public Safety & 911 CX Stack Framework

Public safety contact centers include 911 PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Points) and non-emergency police, fire, and EMS communication centers. The CX framework applies differently here: 'customer satisfaction' is secondary to 'caller survival.' The operational challenge is life-safety call handling with zero tolerance for failure, alongside non-emergency community service that increasingly includes mental health crisis and social services.

Map your current capabilities across all 7 layers: 35 checkpoints. Mark what you have, what you need and what is planned. Your answers stay in this browser tab.

Figures for this segment

No public benchmark exists for these figures in this segment. Measure your own with the tool named beside each.

  • Answer Time · Measure yours in Staffing CalculatorDriven by staffing against call arrival by hour; NENA's published standard is shown above
  • Dispatch TimeTime from answer to unit dispatched, driven by call type protocols and CAD integration
  • Abandonment · Measure yours in Staffing CalculatorEvery abandoned emergency call needs a callback attempt, since the caller may be in danger
  • AccuracyAddress and call type accuracy decide where and what responds

The published 911 answering standard

90% within 15 secondsNENA (National Emergency Number Association) 2020

NENA call answering standard

A standard each PSAP measures itself against, evaluated monthly from call arrival to answer. No national average of actual answer times is published.

Public Safety & 911: the 7-layer CX stack

For each capability, mark whether you have it, need it or have it planned.

0 of 35 marked

Layer 7: Analytics & Governance

0 of 5 in place

Measure and govern. Vendors in this layer include NICE (NiceInContact Public Safety), Hexagon, Zetron.

  • Call answer time compliance against NENA/NFPA standards
  • Dispatch accuracy and response time correlation
  • Call-type analytics: emergency vs non-emergency vs crisis vs information
  • Text-to-911 usage and response time tracking
  • Critical incident review and quality improvement

Key risk: Answer time degradation during major incidents

Layer 6: Routing & Orchestration

0 of 5 in place

Route the work. Vendors in this layer include Intrado (Lumen), Zetron, Hexagon, Motorola.

  • Emergency call routing based on caller location (wireline ALI, wireless Phase II)
  • Priority dispatch protocols (medical, fire, police) with pre-arrival instructions
  • Text-to-911 routing and processing
  • Mental health crisis routing to co-responder or crisis teams
  • Non-emergency to emergency escalation when call nature changes

Key risk: Wireless emergency call routed to the wrong PSAP based on cell tower location

Layer 5: Conversation Management

0 of 5 in place

Hold the conversation. Vendors in this layer include Intrado, RapidSOS, Motorola, Zetron.

  • Text-to-911 for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and unsafe-to-talk callers
  • Real-time language interpretation for non-English 911 callers
  • Pre-arrival instructions (CPR, bleeding control, childbirth)
  • Crisis intervention communication for mental health emergencies
  • Community notification for active threats and natural disasters

Key risk: Deaf caller unable to reach 911 via text in a jurisdiction that hasn't deployed text-to-911

Layer 4: Reasoning & Planning

0 of 5 in place

Decide the next step. Vendors in this layer include RapidSOS, Carbyne, Mark43 AI.

  • Automated location verification for wireless and VoIP emergency calls
  • Call-type classification AI assisting dispatcher triage
  • Non-emergency report intake bots for crime reporting and noise complaints
  • Community safety FAQ bots for non-emergency information
  • Crisis line bots for initial screening before counselor connection

Key risk: AI misclassifying a life-threatening call as non-emergency

Layer 3: Policy & Guardrails

0 of 5 in place

Set the rules. Vendors in this layer include NENA standards, FCC regulations.

  • NENA NG911 standards compliance
  • HIPAA compliance for medical dispatch information
  • CJIS compliance for law enforcement data access
  • Kari's Law and RAY BAUM'S Act compliance for enterprise 911
  • State and local 911 governance and funding compliance

Key risk: Enterprise buildings not compliant with Kari's Law direct-dial 911 requirements

Layer 2: Workflow Execution

0 of 5 in place

Do the work. Vendors in this layer include Hexagon, Motorola Solutions, Tyler New World, Mark43.

  • Emergency call processing workflow: answer, triage, dispatch, pre-arrival instructions
  • Non-emergency report intake workflow with case number assignment
  • Mental health crisis workflow with co-responder or mobile crisis team dispatch
  • Community notification workflow for active threats and evacuations
  • Mutual aid coordination workflow for multi-agency incidents

Key risk: Mental health crisis dispatching police response when crisis team is needed

Layer 1: Data Access

0 of 5 in place

Know the customer. Vendors in this layer include Intrado, RapidSOS, Hexagon, Motorola, Mark43.

  • ALI/ANI: caller location and phone number for 911
  • CAD: active incidents, unit status, and dispatch history
  • RMS: records management for crime reports and case data
  • GIS: caller location mapping, response zones, and hazard data
  • RapidSOS: real-time device data (location, health, crash detection)

Key risk: Wireless 911 location accuracy insufficient for interior response (apartment, floor)

Mark at least 18 capabilities to see your profile (0 of 35 so far).

Sources and assumptions

Every figure on this page is a published figure checked on the publisher's own page, a labelled planning assumption you can test with your own numbers, or a worked example.

Published figures

No public benchmark

  • Average 911 answer time, public safety and 911 contact centers. No national average is published; NENA publishes the answering standard, shown as a measure on this page, and each PSAP reports its own. Measure yours in Staffing Calculator.
  • Call processing time, answer to dispatch, public safety and 911 contact centers. No national average is published; NFPA and NENA set processing standards that vary by call type.
  • 911 call abandonment, public safety and 911 contact centers. No national average is published for 911 abandonment. Measure yours in Staffing Calculator.
  • Address and call type accuracy, public safety and 911 contact centers. No national average is published for address or call type accuracy.