Page 17 - Guilford County ROD Process Reengineering

Recommendation1 –

Implement a customer kiosk

The use of kiosks has grown in popularity in the past 10 – 15 years with the advent of

dramatically advanced network capabilities. Kiosks provide many benefits for the organization

and customers. In process improvement, the expression we use to describe engaging customers

in providing self-service is co-production. When we enlist customers in the provision of services

that benefit themselves, we can say that they become co-producers of their own services. In other

words, they take over processes that the organization would normally provide. One might ask,

DRAFT
why would a customer take on the responsibility for services (in this case, data entry) that they

would normally consider a part of the service that is provided for them for payment? The answer

is that there is the expectation that the self-service provides benefits in excess of the time and

energy that they have to expend. The payoff for customers is typically faster service because they

do not have to wait for an agent to become available to receive service.

In addition to not having to key data into a system, the organization benefits from the input

of data into an electronic processor with data fields that can significantly reduce errors.

Furthermore, once the data is inputted, we can electronically route the digitized data through

workflow automation and direct it to downstream processors who are stationed to receive the

input. The benefits to: ROD include

Better utilization of Electronic data Fewer data entry Enhanced customer
resources because capture that is errors service because
front line resources available for citizens can service
can be reserved for storage and themselves (ROD may
value-added retrieval elect to use a customer
downstream service “floater” who
processes
provides assistance
with the process when
needed)
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