We created the ECC (Emergency Communications Center) Vendor Evaluation Guide & Scorecard to help ECC leaders ask better questions during vendor evaluations. But knowing what to ask is only half of it. The answers matter just as much. And how do you know a good answer when you hear one? We thought the best way to answer that was to ask our resident expert for examples.
Jason Jackson has spent over 15 years in public safety, working alongside the people and organizations responsible for emergency response. As Watson's Strategic Growth Leader, he brings a technical foundation that goes well beyond the sales conversation and cares deeply about the people on the other side of every 911 call. He's the kind of person who walks into a center and immediately starts thinking about what's working, what isn't, and what nobody has thought to ask yet.
We asked him some questions to give you a framework of what to expect from a vendor conversation. His answers are a good example of the depth and honesty you should be getting from any vendor you sit down with. Feel free to add them to your own personal scorecard.
What's a question you wish every ECC leader asked you before buying a console?
"Walk me through your exact process for a live, in-room swap without dropping a single active position."
Most leaders ask about warranty or lead time. Rarely do they ask about the logistics of transition day. In a 24/7/365 environment, you can't shut down operations to install new furniture. The real question is how a vendor manages cable containment, power transitions, and radio and CAD continuity during the literal hour the old desk is being hauled out and the new one is being bolted down.
If a vendor stumbles on deployment logistics, the best-looking console in the world won't save them from a chaotic go-live.
When someone tells you their operators are fatigued, what's the first thing you want to know about their current setup?
What is the ambient noise level, and how are the environmental controls decoupled from the neighboring position?
When people think dispatcher fatigue, they usually think chairs or height adjustment. But the silent contributors are often micro-stressors. Is the HVAC blowing directly on one person's neck while the person next to them is overheating? Are the acoustic panels actually absorbing the noise from a loud position, or is that sound bouncing straight into the adjacent headset? Can operators adjust their own focal depth across a multi-monitor array, or are they dealing with undetected eye strain shift after shift?
Ergonomics is more than sitting or standing. It's the total sensory environment.
What's the most common thing centers underestimate when it comes to their console and their technology five years from now?
The sheer weight, heat, and cable volume of NextGen 911 hardware redundancy.
Centers look at their current tech stack and buy a console that fits today's equipment. What they underestimate is the transition overlap. Five years out, a center might be running legacy systems parallel to new NG911 infrastructure, adding secondary backup monitors, or integrating real-time crime center feeds. Suddenly a cable channel that looked generous is completely choked, the tech storage is overheating because it lacks active thermal management, and the desk's lifting capacity is maxed out.
Buy for where you're going, not where you are.
What's the most challenging room you've ever had to work with, and what did that project teach you?
An underground backup center with a massive concrete support pillar dead center, a seven-foot ceiling, and zero right angles. Eight positions in a space that felt like a submarine.
Every standard layout either failed ADA compliance or blocked sightlines to the supervisor array. We had to completely abandon traditional linear and pod configurations and design a custom staggered layout around that pillar.
The lesson: sightlines dictate everything. You cannot force a standard catalog product into a non-standard public safety room. If a vendor isn't willing to do a true spatial and sightline analysis of your exact room before they propose a layout, that's useful information.
What's a cost that never shows up in a bid but always shows up eventually?
The cost of maintaining the console after the warranty ends.
The initial RFP covers hardware, delivery, and maybe a ten-year warranty. What it doesn't cover is IT and radio tech labor down the road. If an actuator fails in year eleven, how many hours does it take a county technician to access and replace it? If the vendor uses proprietary parts with a six-week lead time, the real cost isn't the part. It's the downtime on that position, or the premium for emergency field service.
Ask any vendor what a repair looks like in year twelve. The answer tells you a lot.
