Halt! Who Goes There?
Credentialing Appointments without "Walk in and Wait" pain
Marco Peterson
Not the least of these hurdles is managing the logistics of moving people quickly through the system. Traditionally, credentialing appointments have been on a walk-in basis, or, more accurately, "walk in and wait." This approach can result in unacceptable wait times, which cause discomfort for the applicant and tremendous wasted productivity. For example, CAC applicants have sometimes had to wait for five hours to apply for a card.
Self-service is the only economically viable way to schedule very high volumes of appointments. Recent estimates from Forrester Research and Gartner Group assert that it costs $5 to $6 to handle a single human-to-human scheduling contact manually. That would bring the total cost to schedule 20 million appointments to more than $100 million. The situation cries out for automation, but when government applications are involved, security considerations demand that any solution reliably support the predefined rules and conditions.
Robust appointment scheduling software can help organizations in both the private and public sectors to apply Web technology to transform critical and complex processes. Unlike calendaring software, such as Outlook, commercial-strength scheduling systems can handle thousands, or millions, of appointments per year and are adept at solving complex challenges with a rich set of services and business rules. They also can provide support for multiple locations, time zones and a wide array of human and capital resources.
The key to moving customers, employees or contractors to a self-service scheduling model rather than a pure walk-in approach is to rigidly enforce all the complex security requirements, while hiding the complexity from users. This provides a great user experience so they like it and will use it.
The Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) is an example of a public sector organization that successfully took on the self-service scheduling challenge. DMDC conducted an independent study to evaluate Web self-service appointment scheduling. The goal of the study was to find out if a self-service approach would alleviate the crush of millions of credentialing appointments, increase efficiencies and lower costs.
The DMDC sponsored a Department of Defense ID Card Issuance Scheduler System (DoD ID-CISS) pilot and operated it through the U.S. Navy’s Access Card Office. The manpower center implemented the leading Web-based, self-service appointment system to support the workflow and system interfaces required for HSPD-12, Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) and CAC.
To gather customer feedback systematically throughout the pilot, DMDC utilized an interactive survey tool called ICE. Ninety-five percent of the respondents stated that they would recommend self-service appointment scheduling to others.
The reasons offered included ease of use, efficient use of their time and the elimination of unpredictable, in-person wait times. One user said, "Making an electronic appointment for a CAC card expedites the process. It has taken me no more than 15 minutes from the time of my arrival to completion." Another recognized the widespread opportunity to improve processes, saying, "Great idea, hopefully all functions at this office will utilize the appointment process to streamline this once dreaded activity."
The DMDC study confirmed that transitioning from a walk-in model to a self-service, appointment-based approach can save millions of hours of applicants’ time, administrative costs and overall frustration. Long waits were eliminated or reduced from hours to minutes. A DMDC report summarizing results said, "Appointment scheduling has a dramatic effect on the customer’s service experience. Customers appreciate being able to schedule an appointment for issuance services knowing their time is valued and that they will be served at their appointed time. Also, by being notified about the materials that should be brought to their appointment, customers arrive to their appointment prepared."
The implementation also successfully demonstrated the ability of Web-based scheduling software to support a variety of scheduling workflows and business rules for the issuance of CAC credentials to contractors, commercial vendors, DoD civilian employees, active and non-active duty military personnel, family members, foreign military and several other classes of users.
Improved standardized credentialing is intended to fortify America’s security. Issuing the cards is a logistical challenge, but Web self-service technology has proven capable of taking the pain and inefficiency out of the appointment process itself. Applying self-service scheduling is relevant for any high-volume appointment process and bears consideration to augment or replace the challenges of handling unplanned walk-ins, to streamline efficiencies and to optimize everyone’s time.
Marco Peterson is co-founder of TimeTrade Systems, Inc., of Bedford, MA. He can be reached at:
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