The Customer’s Journey Between Offices to Complete a Single Transaction
A man walked into an institution to complete a transaction he assumed would take no more than a few minutes. He brought all his paperwork, waited for his turn, and finally reached an employee who told him he needed to visit another office. At the second office, he was told that approval had to start at the first office. The man returned to where he started, but the employee had stepped out for a break, leaving the transaction pending until the next day. The man was not looking for an exception or special treatment; he just wanted to know where to begin and where it would end.
Wasted Time Is Part of the Cost of Service
This story might sound ordinary, yet it opens an important door in evaluating services. We sometimes count the number of completed transactions and measure how long a request sits with an employee, but we do not ask enough about the time the customer spends outside those calculations, moving between offices or trying to understand conflicting instructions. That time does not appear in performance reports, but it is part of the cost of service that a person pays out of their day, work, and peace of mind.
The Absence of Someone to Oversee the Complete Customer Journey
The issue is not limited to a single government entity, nor is it confined to the public sector. A visitor might face it in a healthcare facility, a customer in a bank, or a small business owner dealing with an accounting office, a delivery company, and a supplier. The names differ, but the problem is the same: each party knows its own part, and no one takes responsibility for the entire journey. When something stalls, the easiest answer is to refer the person elsewhere.
Three Questions That Reveal Service Quality
An employee is not required to know all the details of the institution, nor to step outside their specialization. What is needed is a clear answer to three simple questions: Who is responsible for the request right now? What specific procedure is missing? And when can the applicant know the result? If the institution fails to provide these answers, the problem goes beyond the skill of a single employee to the design of the service itself.
Conflicting Instructions Increase Customer Hardship
Many problems stem from instructions that are not updated in a timely manner. A paper posted on the wall says one thing, the website says another, and the employee follows a circular that arrived that morning. The customer bears the consequences of this discrepancy, even though they have no way of knowing internal instructions. Here, correcting the information becomes the responsibility of the institution before it is an obligation for the person who came to complete a transaction.
Digital Services Do Not End the Problem of Waiting and Ambiguity
Digital services have helped cut down many steps, but they do not automatically solve the problem. A customer can fill out a form in minutes, then wait days because the request was sent to a department that does not answer inquiries. They might receive a brief message stating that the transaction is incomplete without specifying what is missing. We have thus moved the waiting from the corridors to the phone screen, while the ambiguity remains the same.
Practical Steps to Cut Wasted Time Between Offices
We can start with practical steps that do not need massive projects. Standardize requirements among employees, give the customer an understandable tracking number, provide a way to inquire about the reason for a delay, and review cases where applicants are forced to repeat visits. Listening to reception staff is also necessary; they are the first to hear recurring questions and the best equipped to spot instructions that the public does not understand.
The Responsibility of the Institution, Not Just the Employee
It is also fair to note the work pressure that many employees bear. The employee might themselves be the victim of a system that does not grant them the authority to make a decision or access the correct information. Therefore, placing the blame for every delay solely on them will not fix the procedure. True repair begins with distributing responsibilities, clarifying decision pathways, and giving workers tools to help them provide an honest and useful answer.
Respecting People’s Time Is a Benchmark for Institutional Quality
Respecting people’s time is not a courtesy institutions offer, but part of the quality of their work. A person who takes time off work or travels a distance to complete a transaction should not discover a new condition on every visit. The transaction might eventually finish and the system might show that it was completed successfully, but what the owner lost along the way stays off the record. Good service is one that remembers that time and works to ensure it is not wasted again.
About the Author
Abdullah Saeed Al Habsi, MIoL, is an Emirati writer and researcher specializing in security, heritage, risk, and operations rooms, and is a Member of the Institute of Leadership (UK). He holds a master’s degree in leadership and organizational development, with published books, research papers, and articles. Literary signature: A.S. Alhebsi.
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