Delaware County’s story proves that smart technology doesn’t replace the human touch — it protects it.
For Delaware County Emergency Services in southeastern Pennsylvania, the challenge was not only answering 9-1-1 calls, but managing thousands of abandoned calls.
Serving a population of 584,000 residents and handling nearly 748,000 9-1-1 and admin calls annually, the center faced a growing wave of abandoned calls that drained both time and morale. Each abandoned call required a manual callback and CAD entry—diverting focus from true emergencies. Over time, these callbacks grew to number tens of thousands each year, becoming a daily source of frustration for telecommunicators already managing nonstop demands.
“Hang-up calls are a huge burden,” said Anthony Mignogna, Chief of Communications for Delaware County Emergency Services. “You might have 25 or 30 in a shift and each callback takes about a minute and 30 seconds. They definitely affect morale.”
Three years ago Delaware County implemented Automated Abandoned Callback (AAC), a feature that identifies abandoned or open-line calls and automatically redials the number. Callers are then presented with an interactive prompt: “If this is an emergency, press 1. If not, press 3.” Should the caller indicate an emergency, the system immediately directs the call to a live 9-1-1 telecommunicator. Otherwise, the system records the outcome for accountability purposes through the center’s analytics program.
“In the first year,” says Mignogna, “we were able to drop our abandoned call rate by almost 80%, and the impact was felt across the floor.”
Boosting morale
“Before implementing AAC,” explains Mignogna, “we handled approximately 35,000–40,000 abandoned calls—roughly 5% of our total annual call volume. What this technology did was take a redundant, morale-draining task off our team’s plate and gave them back time for what really matters—helping people.”
Mignogna makes the point that AAC benefits the call taker first. “It’s like having two call takers in one so they can focus on true emergencies. When the staff believes their time is valued, it boosts morale across the board.”
With AAC, what had once been a constant drain on time and morale has quickly become an invisible process running quietly in the background.
Mignogna concludes, “Now our call takers are readily available for the true emergency 9-1-1 call — which is exactly what we’re here to do.”
Learn more about the benefits of reducing abandoned calls.
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