How can Government Departments be so dim?

Getting people to make enquiries by email, rather than phone, can save a lot of resources. But people aren't going to use email unless you offer a sensible turn-around time for replies.

If you had lots of enquiries coming at you, how would you rather they arrived:

As email, which:

• obliges the author to think about exactly what they are asking (without taking your time while they do it)
• can be queued up so that the enquiry handlers' time can be used efficiently
• may be readily dealt with by sending a ready-made reply, so saving lots of effort

OR

as a Phone call, which:

• may involve the caller rambling before you can find out what they really want
• which requires you to deal with it in "real time" - you can only queue it up for a few minutes
• cannot really be offered a "recorded announcement" even if the question they ask is one that you often encounter

But try being a good cost-concerned citizen, and what do you find? Whilst standards for answering the phone are measured in minutes, or even seconds, the target for responding to emails is rather more leisurely.

The last time I needed to contact DCMS - Department of Culture, Media and Sport - a couple of weeks ago, they promised of a response "within 20 working days" if I chose to use email.

So I phoned instead - and got a same-day answer, but probably used up considerably more Civil Servant time than if I had used email.

# posted by John Geddes @ 11:26 AM 0 comments links to this post