ServiceArizona. Executive Summary

Transcription

1 ServiceArizona Executive Summary ServiceArizona is an electronic service delivery channel on a dedicated website ( developed by the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (MVD). It gives citizens quick and easy access to motor vehicle and driver license services by way of the Internet. Beginning with one online transaction in 1997, ServiceArizona usage by citizens has grown from 92,400 transactions its first full year of operation to more than 2.5 million transactions for currently available 12 transactions in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year. ServiceArizona is available around the clock, giving citizens a fast and easy-to-use option for completing business with MVD at their own convenience. Besides giving citizens a fast and convenient service delivery channel, ServiceArizona has helped MVD improve its customer service, reduce its staff workload and avoid the considerable expense of additional staff and facilities that would be required to handle the transactions now being done online. Arizona is one of the fastest growing states in the country, and the volume of motor vehicle-related transactions has grown commensurate with the population growth. ServiceArizona has helped to offset that growth by giving citizens a medium for conducting business without having to visit an MVD office. Studies done by MVD have indicated that online transactions cost about one third the cost of an over-the-counter transaction in terms of reduced employee-related expenses and overhead costs.

2 ServiceArizona Arizona Motor Vehicle Division Description of Project ServiceArizona is an online service delivery system that gives Arizona citizens the availability of an around-the-clock channel for doing business with the Motor Vehicle Division without leaving home or office. ServiceArizona was introduced in 1997, when real-time, interactive online transactions with government agencies were virtually nonexistent. That fact made ServiceArizona an innovation for the time, and one that proved to be highly successful. The Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) continued to build ServiceArizona functionality, and it has grown into a major service delivery channel for citizens. Since beginning in 1997 with one transaction, vehicle registration renewal, ServiceArizona now offers 12 of the most common vehicle and driver transactions. Arizona residents conduct more than 200,000 transactions per month through ServiceArizona, taking a significant workload off the MVD customer service offices and helping those offices reduce the time customers customers have to wait to see a service representative. After logging on to the ServiceArizona web site, customers can access the transaction of their choice simply by clicking the appropriate icon, as shown on the ServiceArizona home page below, and following the on-screen instructions.

3 In addition to being a pioneer in providing interactive, real-time electronic transactions, a number of innovative applications have been developed for ServiceArizona over the years, including the first electronic voter registration form that can be filled out and submitted online, a personalized license plate application that informs the citizen instantly if the selected plate is already in use so another selection can be made, and a first of a kind temporary registration permit that can be printed on the citizen s own printer rather than being mailed at a later date. Significance to Improvement of Government Operations ServiceArizona has provided MVD with a variety of efficiencies to improve the Division s overall operations. The system has helped offset the workload in MVD offices significantly, contributing toward a lowering of the customer waiting time in offices from several hours in the mid-1990s to about 23 minutes today. Various studies of ServiceArizona have indicated that the cost of an Internet transaction is about onethird that of an over-the-counter transaction. As Arizona has long been one of the fastest growing states in the country, the overall number of MVD transactions has grown commensurately. ServiceArizona is handling a high portion of that transaction growth along with the base workload. Among the high volume transactions, ServiceArizona is now accounting for 35% of the vehicle registration renewals, 30% of duplicate driver license orders, 55% of 3-day single trip

4 permits and 50% of personalized license plate orders. Without ServiceArizona, MVD would have to build more customer service facilities and hire more employees to handle the transaction growth, but the availability of around the clock electronic services has enabled MVD to avoid those major expenses. The online voter registration feature available on ServiceArizona is the first of its kind in the country. It allows an Arizona resident to submit an initial voter registration or update an existing registration electronically. The registration information is verified with the citizen s information contained in MVD s driver license database and transmitted electronically, along with the registrant s digitized signature from the MVD database, to the Arizona Secretary of State s Office, which administers the voter registration rolls for the state. This online service is a creative extension of the federal Motor Voter Act, which requires state motor vehicle agencies to provide registration materials to residents using the agencies services. ServiceArizona also gives customers the opportunity to provide comments at the end of each transaction. This feedback is used by MVD to gauge the level of customer satisfaction and more important is a source of suggestions for enhancements to the online services to make them even more customer-friendly. MVD regularly reviews the customer comments to identify areas for improvement. Benefits Realized MVD s guiding principle in developing online transactions is to make them fast, simple and easy to use for the customer. While there are 12 distinct transactions offered on ServiceArizona, each has the same look and feel, and with one exception, each walks the customer through the transaction in a simple five-step process. The one exception, a review of the registration fee credit remaining on a customer s vehicle registration, is so simple it only requires three steps. The use of a dedicated website for online MVD transactions alone allows customers to easily find the services they need without having to scroll through a home page to find online services among an array of information and links. There is a link from the MVD home page ( directly to ServiceArizona for those who log onto MVD s page first. In addition, there are several transactions within transactions on ServiceArizona. For example, customers ordering a duplicate driver license (replacement for one that was lost or damaged) or conducting a registration renewal can also update their address if necessary as part of the same transaction. A special license plate (collegiate, environmental, historic vehicle, etc.) or personalized plate can be ordered as part of the registration renewal. A customer also is given the opportunity to register to vote while completing other transactions. Each of these optional transactions address update, voter registration and license plate order also is a stand-alone service on ServiceArizona and can be entered directly on the web site. The option to conduct these transactions as part of another transaction is a time-saving convenience to customers. Another variation was

5 applied to the duplicate driver license transaction wherein a customer ordering a duplicate who owes MVD fees for an abandoned vehicle or non-sufficient funds check is required to pay the delinquent fees before the driver license order will go through. The fees can be paid online as part of the duplicate driver license transaction. Once paid, the license transaction is processed. This feature enables the state to collect revenues that might otherwise go uncollected for a longer period. Another benefit allows customers requiring a 3-day temporary vehicle registration permit to order the permit online, pay for it and at the same time print the permit on their own printer rather than wait for it to be mailed. This is a valuable time-saver for the customer and an efficient process for MVD, since it eliminates manual stocking and handling of permit inventory. When introduced in 2002, this one-stop permit application was the first of its kind. These permit orders now go into a newly created MVD database that allows the Division to track how many are issued electronically and to whom at any given time, a capability that did not exist previously. Some transactions have specialized features that go beyond the primary transaction function itself. For instance, the driver license reinstatement allows a driver whose license was suspended to reinstate the license when terms of the suspension are satisfied in the courts. If all the terms have not been satisfied and a driver tries to reinstate, the application wills stop the transaction and explain on-screen why it cannot proceed and what the customer must do to be eligible to reinstate. The personalized license plate application will tell a customer if the plate requested is already in use. The application also scans a database of number and word combinations that are prohibited because of an offensive nature, and tells the customer that the plate is unavailable. MVD and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which oversees vehicle emission inspections that are required prior to registration renewal, worked together to link the DEQ test results database to the MVD vehicle records database. Emission test results are transmitted immediately to MVD so that customers can renew their registration as soon as their vehicle has passed the test. To further improve convenience for customers, last year MVD installed self-service workstations in 15 of its busiest customer offices. These workstations allow citizens who go to an MVD office to complete transactions online rather than waiting for a customer service representative. If a credential has to be issued, such as a registrations tab or duplicate driver license, it is given to the customer before leaving the office. More than 9,000 transactions per month are now being conducted on the self-service units, and plans are in progress to install them in 13 more MVD offices before the end of this year. ServiceArizona transactions are paid by credit cards, so the fee revenues are collected immediately, and there is no concern of bad check losses. ServiceArizona has improved customer goodwill toward MVD considerably. Customer satisfaction as measured by an optional survey at the end of each transaction is consistently in the high 90 percentile, and written feedback is highly positive, with customers repeatedly citing the ease, simplicity, speed and convenience of MVD s online services.

6 Return on Investment The average time for an MVD employee to conduct a transaction is eight minutes. The nearly 1.9 million citizen transactions conducted over ServiceArizona in Fiscal Year 2004 would equal more than 250,000 hours of employee time. On average, an employee works 1,800 hours per year, so MVD would have needed 140 more full-time employees to handle the transaction volume carried by ServiceArizona in FY At an average salary and benefits of $35,000 per year per employee, MVD was able to avoid nearly $5 million in salary expense thanks to online services. ServiceArizona's usage has grown steadily each year since its inception. MVD measures the utility of the site in terms of transactions conducted as opposed to visits, which might not result in a service activity. Internet transactions became part of MVD's long range strategic plan in Fiscal Year 2001 (Fiscal year runs July through June). That year the objective was 30,000 transactions per month, and the actual monthly average was 28,500 transactions. ServiceArizona has exceeded objective every year since. Following are each succeeding fiscal year actual monthly average results for citizen transactions, with objective in parenthesis: FY 2002, 71,666 (45,000). FY 2003, 114,750 (92,000). FY 2004, 158,250 (115,170). Through 11 months of FY 2005, the monthly average is 228,730, compared with the objective of 211,415.