The City of Torrance Permit Center serves as a centralized hub for various services, including building permits, code enforcement, planning, engineering permits, and housing programs. It offers both in-person assistance and online resources through the Torrance Online Citizen Portal, enabling residents and businesses to apply for permits, access property information, and search records conveniently.

The Center offers approximately 10 services, such as issuing business licenses, overseeing building and safety, engineering, planning, cashiering, housing and more. The City of Torrance Permit Center is open Monday-Thursday with every other Friday closed, and serves around 130 people a day.

The problem

So many services, so little time

The City of Torrance has 72 staff members with rotating front-desk duties. The attention is split between several key services — from building permits to code enforcement, to business licenses.

This means there are a lot of customers signing in for wildly different services throughout the day, and as the Permit Center serves about 2 600 customers per month, it ends up being a wide mixture of various services being sought after at any given moment. Additionally, the waiting area is not ideal for accommodating large crowds of visitors, which puts additional pressure to serve efficiently and fast. All of this makes a queuing system a necessity rather than a luxury.

The first queuing software that the Torrance staff used was riddled with different problems, often resulting in misplaced visitor tickets and confusion. The City of Torrance decided to look for another system, one that could:

• Enable self check-ins to lighten the load on employees

• Provide remote queuing and waiting

• Give precise numbers about the service

The Goal

Minimize crowding

The City of Torrance wanted to minimize the crowding in their waiting area and give the tools to their staff that automate the waiting process. They needed a modern, efficient queuing system to handle the center’s workload effectively and improve customer experience.

The solution

Flexible queue management

One of the deciding factors for choosing Qminder was its user-friendliness and flexibility in terms of customization. Compared to other queuing systems, Qminder was found to be more intuitive. Previously, the staff had to always contact the technical support team for troubleshooting, which could take days to resolve. With Qminder, just two members of the in-house staff were able to set up and configure everything on their own, from start to finish.

Now, visitors check in independently using iPad kiosks and have the option to wait outside in the comfort of their vehicles or a covered outdoor area. When the time to call them up is approaching, they receive an SMS.

The text messaging feature has significantly improved efficiency and customer experience at the Permit Center. Previously, visitors could spend hours waiting in the wrong queue, only to be redirected manually. With text messaging, customers can now be quickly notified when they are in the incorrect line and moved to the appropriate division. This reduces unnecessary wait times and streamlines the flow of visitors. For example, a customer waiting for a dumpster permit who mistakenly queues for building and safety can be immediately redirected to engineering, where they are called up without delay. By encouraging the use of this feature among tech-savvy staff, the system delivers a faster, smoother experience for everyone.

This simple layout eliminates a lot of pain points for both the visitors and the staff.

The success

Playing the numbers game

One of the more obvious results from implementing Qminder were drastically improved service and wait times. Qminder Customer Service Intelligence provides a comprehensive overview about organizational and service health with data insights directly in the product. For Permit Center this data revealed a direct correlation between staffing levels and wait times. When the Center is fully staffed, wait times decrease, enhancing the overall customer experience. However, a reduction in staff leads to immediate spikes in wait times, directly impacting service quality. This data serves as a critical tool for advocating swift action to fill vacancies, ensuring efficient operations and maintaining high service standards.

Having a detailed visitor history helps better understand specific needs of a particular customer, and see all of their previous service interactions (whether they are being served for the first time, have been moved to another line or assigned to a specific service agent, etc.). The fact that this could be done from a mobile device means that the staff is always in control of their queues.

Concrete numbers and reports are something that the City of Torrance finds especially useful about Qminder. They can now accurately measure the changes in their average stats and adapt their service strategy accordingly.

Learning points

The City of Torrance puts many of Qminder’s features to good use — from real-time reporting to two-way SMS communications.

Streamlined communication

The City of Torrance puts many of Qminder’s features to good use — from real-time reporting to two-way SMS communications.

The system’s ease of use ensures accessibility for a diverse range of customers, from tech-savvy younger users to older and culturally varied demographics. With minimal instructions, most visitors can navigate the check-in process smoothly, requiring little intervention. Usability of Qminder remains the key factor in delivering a seamless experience. Apart from improving the situation for their visitors, the staff has experienced a dramatic improvement in their work environment and day-to-day operations as well.

The self-check-in feature has lightened the load, and the reporting has made it possible to base business decisions on hard numbers.

The interface on which your clerks will see the queue and communicate with visitors through messaging

Results

• Improved efficiency and service times: significant reductions in wait times and improved customer flow through real-time adjustments and streamlined processes.

• Flexible queue management: staff can independently configure the system, adapting to changes such as counter closures or workflow adjustments without delays.

• Data-driven staffing decisions: insights from Qminder data have helped justify the need for more staff and enabled quick actions to fill vacancies, leading to improved service levels

• Reduction of physical lines: visitors can check in via kiosks and receive SMS updates, reducing physical lines and enhancing the customer experience.