Q: How many consultants does it take a replace a light bulb?
A: Trick question. Four of them will tell you how to do it, but if you want them to implement it, that costs extra.

Q: How much does it cost to hire a consultant?
A: How much do you have?

These themes are consistent with how many people view the consulting industry: Overpriced, incomplete, unnecessary. When I say to you, You need a consultant, you probably think, Why? I don’t need to pay someone to tell me what I already know.

To some extent, you’re right. You’ve been in this game a long time, you’ve gotten a boatload of training and education, and above all else, you know your people and your Center. Who better to understand the problems and to know what solutions will work?

Ahhh, if only life were that simple. There are inherent flaws in that thought process, many of which are subconsciously driven, and many of which are beyond your control. Let’s explore this idea a bit deeper as we discuss the main reasons why you need a consultant.

You need another view.

One of the great things about doing this job as long as you have – and at a high level – is that you know your Center well. One of the drawbacks? You know your Center well. When you know the people, when you’ve seen the changes, when you implemented procedures yourself, you start to lose the ability to remain neutral. The longer you do the job, the further you get from impartiality.

I’ll give you an example. I promoted to Dispatch Supervisor at a Center at which I’d never worked (I was at a very large organization with several Centers). I was assigned to a shift with an employee – we’ll call him John – that was rude to callers, violated policy by never asking for names or phone numbers, and often would fail to create a CAD incident if he felt the call was not important. I searched through his past performance evaluations and found no evidence that he had ever been counseled on his behavior.

Astounded, I asked a peer to provide some insight. “Oh, that’s just John,” she told me. “He’s just a little salty.”

No one else I spoke with seemed to be concerned. They’d gotten so accustomed to his behavior that it was commonplace to them. It took someone from outside to recognize that we were dealing with a problem employee.

As you’re reading this, you probably can think of a similar scenario in your own Center. Or, perhaps even more common, is the notion of following certain procedures “because that’s how we’ve always done things around here.” Sound familiar? Even without recognizing it, we become so acquainted with our environment that we lose the ability to be truly objective. A consultant – one that is truly unaffiliated with your personnel and your practices – is the perfect person to provide a genuine evaluation of your Center without the innate influences.

You need another voice.

There are two distinct variations of this:

1. Your people need to hear from someone that is truly unbiased that a problem exists and needs solving. As much as you can harp on the need for change, someone from the outside – especially a credible consultant whose entire job is focused on this kind of evaluation – can offer a perspective and another voice that you can’t.

And the more frustrating scenario:

2. Your boss doesn’t believe you. I’ve been there, and I ultimately left a job as a Center Manager because of it. As much as you try to convince your bosses that change is necessary, even as you provide them with a ton of compelling evidence, there are times that your stance isn’t recognized as valid. A consultant can convince your bosses that your plan really is rational.

Do you ever laugh to yourself when a caller asks to speak with a supervisor, then thanks you when you give the exact same answer your dispatcher did? Same principle applies here. Even if a consultant tells your boss the exact same thing, it bears additional credibility. Ironically, paying for a consultant to tell them the exact same thing can often loosen their grip on the checkbook.

You need a hired gun.

George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air made a living travelling to different offices to fire people. Similar scenario with The Bobs from Office Space. Sometimes you need someone to do your dirty work, and engaging a consultant provides the perfect opportunity.

It doesn’t just have to be employee termination or discipline, it can be any unfavorable or uncomfortable task that needs to be done. Maybe you need to implement a new procedure that you know your folks aren’t going to like. Perhaps it’s time for better QA on your call-taking procedures. Maybe you need to rearrange your staffing levels and don’t want to tell your favorite dispatcher that she’s losing her weekends off. Whatever the scenario, even the most divided people tend to rally around the idea of sharing a common enemy. Let a consultant be that enemy.

You need more people.

We tend to think of consultants as people that will give us ideas but not do any of the work. Companies like ours offer so much more than that – including offering to do any work that needs to be done in your Center outside of dispatching. Consultants can help you re-write policies, analyze data, run reports, administer your CAD, QA your calls, and any number of other tasks that you’re too busy to handle.

How many Center Managers must focus on a thousand tiny things and lose the time to focus on what’s really important? Let a consultant do those tasks. They can be hired immediately, don’t need to be paid benefits or granted vacation, and you dictate the length and complexity of the contract. It’s like hiring some extra help without going through the pain of hiring extra help. (By the way, if you’re interested in what kind of services Rarefaction can offer – including our subscription services plans – start a conversation with us today.)

You need an expert.

I saved this one for last to delay possibly offending you as long as I could. You’ve been doing this job a long time and you’ve definitely built up an expertise. You know the ins and outs of your Center, you know how other Centers around you operate, and you’re up to date on all the latest industry news. But do you know as much as a consultant does?

The most likely answer is no – but let me back up that argument before you chase me with flaming sticks. The first advantage a consult worth their salt can offer is a wide range of industry knowledge. It’s one thing to read about what other Centers are doing, but it’s entirely another to see it in person. Hire a consultant that’s been in dispatch centers with a wide array of characteristics – big vs small, rural vs urban, law vs fire vs EMS – and you’re exponentially expanding the pool of knowledge. Consultants have seen what works and what doesn’t work, know regional and national trends, and have seen people do really cool things that you’ve probably not heard of yet.

Secondly, as much as we believe ourselves to be experts in certain areas, there’s always someone that knows it better. I believe myself to be a highly-skilled trainer and curriculum developer – I spent four years leading the Training Academy for a very large organization – but I relied on a consultant when it was time to revamp the training program at my own Center. It gave me two benefits: getting a different perspective and different ideas on the content I was proposing, and giving me another set of eyes to verify my work. I would have argued before using the consultant that both were unnecessary; afterwards, I was thankful for both, and I was rewarded with a much better product.

To summarize, a consultant doesn’t just have to be someone that charges you a huge fee to tell you what you already know. A consultant is a partner, a supporter, a fresh perspective, an industry expert, an enforcer when you need some muscle, a task completer when you’re running behind, and any other number of things you can imagine them to be. Including light bulb changers.

Convinced that hiring a consultant isn’t a terrible idea? Please check out our related post, The RFact Team: Why Us?, to learn specifically what RFact can offer your dispatch center. 

Note: This post is updated from one originally published in February 2018.