Tough Customers? The LAPD Blogs

Are you worried about how a conversation with your customers might go? Afraid if you talk to them online, in public, with the whole world watching something might go horribly wrong? Things do go bump in the night, but they aren’t monsters. And customers sometimes bring problems to conversations on blogs, but they aren’t catastrophes either.

The LAPD has decided that blogging is a way to get close to the people they protect and serve. In the opening post to the LAPD blog, Chief William J. Bratton welcomes readers and lets them know exactly why the force is now online and blogging. He does it by extending an invitation.

Welcome to the LAPD Blog. Our online journal is an interactive tool that we use to deliver real-time, unfiltered information. We invite you to take a look inside the Department to learn more about the men and women in blue who have sworn to protect and to serve you.

By using this Blog, the LAPD hopes to maintain an open dialogue with the communites we serve and those who have an interest in the men and women of this organization. We encourage you to express your opinions about current events through respectful and insightful discussion.

The post goes on to address the goals of the blog and the goals of the department and is accompanied by a picture of the man who wrote it. It’s hard not to hear his voice when you read the words.

This post got 17 comments from citizens — all positive, all bloggers. Word of Mouth spread the news so that this writer in Chicago heard about it, and now you did too.

Liz Strauss