Real Life Story 3: Voices from Beyond

Real Life Story 3: Voices from Beyond

May 12th, 2011 → 12:45 pm @ John Seah

Jackson was overwhelmed with excitement. He had a date with the girl of his dreams and wanted it to be perfect. He knew of an ideal restaurant to take her to, but he could not remember the name of the restaurant. Jackson called a telephone directory service. Call Agent Jane’s sweet voice over the other end patiently helped him connect to the correct restaurant for him to make his reservation.

Tong was a housewife who had just purchased a brand new mobile phone. Her happy mood was dampened as she struggled in vain to make a video call to her son. Frustrated, she pulled out the warranty card and made a call to the product service center. Call Agent Mei helped her navigate through the various menu screens and taught Tong how to set some phone settings. It had been more than a year since Tong’s son left to study in London, across half the globe from Singapore. She was overjoyed to be able to both hear and see her son face to face again.

Unknown to Jackson and Tong, Jane had stolen from ATM cards and Mei had cheated her company by forging her boss’ signature.

What happened?
Where’s the gold?
Where’s the innovation?

WHAT HAPPENED?

Jane and Mei were both serving their time as inmates in the Singapore Prison. They were working in a call center and speaking to the public from behind the prison bars .

What is normal then is that inmates are forbidden to talk to the public (and around the world still). How can we expect the inmates to integrate easily into the society and be a productive workforce in the society when they have been isolated for a long time from society?
WHAT’S THE INNOVATION STATEMENT?

One of the biggest problems faced by prison services around the world is “repeat customers”. Many inmates released from prison were determined to change and lead a new life. However, society did not forgive them; they could not find jobs, got hungry, and returned to crime.

The Singapore Prison Services’ mission is to be “Captains of Lives”, motivating the inmates “to Rehab, to Renew, and to Restart”. The prison officers took this problem for brainstorming to one of our training workshops. Using the techniques taught, the thought processes and brainstorming techniques that solved the problem were as follows:

Problem Statement 1:
Our inmates could not get jobs AFTER they were released from prison
After Reframing, the Innovation Statement became:
How can our inmates get jobs BEFORE they are released?
Straits Time. (2005, Aug 24). 24-hour call center – behind bars.
Straits Time. (2005, July 29). Sweet Female Voice on hotline.

Problem Statement 2:
Our inmates could not get jobs because their tattoos would FRIGHTEN OFF their prospective employers and clients.
After Reframing, the Innovation Statement became:
How can our inmates get jobs where CLIENTS WOULD NOT SEE their tattoos?
IDEAS TURNED INTO GOLD

The participants proceeded to generate several hundred ideas based on the reframed innovation statements. At the end of the Ideas Sorting phase, one idea stood out as the answer to both the above Innovation Statements: The FIRST Call Center Behind Bars in the World.

Through this idea, the inmates could be working BEFORE they were released WHILE they were still in the prison. It helped the inmates better integrate with the society in preparation for them to restart their lives anew. They were also trained on Customer Service Skills, Handling Difficult Customer Skills, and Problem Solving Skills.