New passport within the hour. Take a queue ticket and get married. Stay in your car and get drive-in service. In Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, the 14,000 people who visit Public Service Hall every day wait no more than seven minutes to get their business dealt with by 400 operators working at maximum efficiency.

 

Modern customer journey management is not only a way to create better value for business in terms of return on investment and growth. In Milton Keynes in southern England, it has improved support for people in economic and social difficulties, helped to give assurance to the most vulnerable customers and made better use of tax payers’ money.

In April, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs launched a website called Access to Care that relays patient experience metrics like wait times at its clinics. It also compares VA hospitals against other medical facilities in a region on measures like how quickly a veteran can get an appointment and satisfaction with care.

Freakonomics recently posted a podcast and article called “What are you waiting for?” The piece theorizes that standing in
lines is a “sloppy — and frustrating — way for supply and demand to meet.” It offers some provocative thinking about why people wait in lines and the value of doing so.

Shortly after it posted, I was meeting with an executive from one of our key clients in the Motor Vehicle space. He asked if I had seen the article and if I had any thoughts on it. Qmatic is the leading customer journey management technology solution provider in the world so of course, I did. Much of what drives innovation at Qmatic comes directly from our insights about managing physical experiences that involve lines.

Public agencies are at a crossroads. Many have done things a certain way for a very long time. Many lack sufficient funding or an adequate workforce to push forward significant innovation. And because there is no real competition between government agencies, many have simply opted to continue on their current path, regardless of a reputation for slow processes, long wait-times, and frustrated staff.

Across the country, government and public agencies are facing a conundrum. On the one hand, entities like the DMV, Department of Veterans Affairs, and city/county services don’t have to deal with competition. For the most part, citizens have one resource option for satisfying requirements like renewing a license or filing a building plan. On the other hand, they are facing a growing imperative to improve everything from operations and staff capacity, to location environments.  Ironically, in some cases this enables stagnancy from these entities in enabling change, a city doesn’t have to worry about competition.