Situation

Any public-sector agency that directly interacts with large numbers of citizens often finds that demand for its services overwhelms the limited resources available to provide them. A government can’t prioritize its citizen “customers” by using metrics like how valuable they are or how costly to serve—common practices in the private sector under similar circumstances. This was the problem facing a US federal agency seeking to make its call centers and paper-processing facilities more efficient. Rising budget pressure and demand for the agency’s services had had the effect of compromising them. In fact, during times of peak demand, agents answered less than three-quarters of phone calls to the agency, which also processed less than half of all paper applications within its target response time.

Complication

Optimizing the resources allocated to the two channels proved difficult. The agency relied on a common pool of employees who switched between fielding calls and processing forms as necessary to meet spikes in demand. Yet the channels operated independently, with separate managers; the agency relied on personal relationships to exchange important information. What’s more, pressure to respond immediately to phone calls often diverted agents from paper applications, unbalancing the two channels’ service levels.