Foreign Consulate

It is typical to see long queues of people standing outside a foreign consulate. A lot of people wait each day to obtain services. Usually, the consulate provides consulate services, such as renewing passports, visa issuance to foreigners, replacing lost or stolen passports, notarizing documents, and registering births, marriages, and divorces. Consulate services are necessary for migrants and residents. The foreign consulate had to rethink its visitor management strategy because of the enormous numbers of daily clients that had recently emerged, each with their own distinct problem. They were able to accomplish this with AKIS Technologies' assistance, a digital queue management technology provider.

The Challenge

Before AKIS Technologies' solution, the consulate did not have a comfortable visiting procedure for clients. This previous process involved a lot of unnecessary effort for visitors and consulate officers. Each consulate visitor needed to press a button and call the consulate officer before entering the building. A live queue was formed outside the consulate, and people were forced to stand outdoors in the rain and snow. An employee stood nearby to let the visitors into the building.

After explaining the service they required, each person waited for the consulate staff, which accompanied him/her to the consulate office. There were a lot of flaws in this type of procedure:

• Hard to identify the reason for a client visit
• No way to keep visitors informed about the specifics of their visit
• An excess of unnecessary work for the consulate officers, such as the need to answer the phone or to physically accompany visitors to and from the building

The main consulate goal was to simplify the queue management system to free up time for the consulate officers.

Our Solution

The main reason the foreign consulate chose AKIS was its intuitiveness and how user-friendly its systems are. The initial configuration of the new line management system was the best example of this. Nowadays, the ticket terminal is near the front entrance and there is no need for any additional workers to stand by. The queue system has an advanced booking system. Each registered visitor gets a ticket with their queue number. It is a possible for a visitor to register for the next week or even the next day. When a visitor’s turn comes, a sound is made and their ticket number is displayed. The visitor can then enter the consulate using his/her personal bar code. Inside the building, the ticket number is displayed on the digital signage. Foreign consulate personnel, according to their own admission, were able to have AKIS up and running in just a few minutes. The foreign consulate has seen a considerable improvement in wait time reduction and customer satisfaction since using the AKIS Technologies system. The new queuing system connects each customer to the most appropriate support team, allowing them to resolve their issue as quickly as possible.

Customer flow was reorganized by AKIS Technologies, and visitors now know when to expect their turn and which window they must use.

Results

Currently, our queue management system has been working since 2012. The queue management system changed the entry procedure, so the visitors don’t have to wait in line. It’s a simple and quick way to access services. Each visitor can choose needed assistance on the self–service kiosk and their queue status on the signage. There is a bar code on each ticket which clients can use to pass through the security door and enter the consulate office. Consular officers can accept more visitors and focus on each individual task in a more productive manner.