Customers On The Line - June 2, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, I invited Department of Business and Professional Regulation customers to visit our Web site and send me e-mails with questions, concerns, suggestions and comments during “Quality on the Line” office hours. South Floridians answered in droves, and I responded to more than 100 customers.
One Key West resident shared concerns with the renewal process and cited difficulties obtaining fingerprint results in a timely manner, which then slowed the remainder of the process. She brought up a great point, which is that every step of the process needs to work well together in order to provide the best service. We have eliminated the use of hard copy fingerprint cards that were previously required to be mailed to us. This change, alone, has saved weeks of processing. We continue to look for more ways to streamline our processes.
One gentleman from Miami actually started his e-mail with, “Getting input from the people is a fine example of Government by the people.” Another Miami resident shared that her condominium association was withholding records that they were required to make available. She asked for our assistance in the matter, and we continue to work on her case.
A woman from Naples shared that while our call center response times have drastically improved over the past year, sometimes there is a lack of consistency in the answers provided by call agents. We view our call agents as the front lines of the customer experience with DBPR, and we continuously train our team members to provide the best information. This feedback showed that we need to continue focusing our efforts on providing up-to-date information over the phone.
I was particularly interested to hear from a sub-contractor from West Palm Beach who has problems getting some contractors to pay him for his work. He requested our help tracking this trend and wanted our investigators to be on the lookout and they will.
One man from F t. Lauderdale had concerns about continuing education courses, which are required for license renewal. We are now looking at how we provide information on our Web site to see if we can make improvements.
This kind of valuable information is one reason why we do initiatives like “Quality on the Line.” We welcome tips and advice from our customers as to where we should be focusing our efforts. We look to them to be our partners, and I appreciate him bringing this issue to my attention. It is through feedback from our customers on the ground that we continue to improve.