The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Improves Consistency and Response Time in Answering Requests with Email Hotline Tracking

Background

Ultimus Client: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Industry: Public Sector
Solution: Email Hotline Tracking

The State of Massachusetts Commonwealth consists of 11 major state agencies, each of which are further separated into 4-16 more highly focused state departments. The state government operates with a workforce numbering over 428,000 employees that support a population of more than 6 million people.  Massachusetts strives to deliver excellence in its efforts to keep its residents and workforce informed with the latest news, opportunities, legislation, and recreational information.

Goal:  Consistent and timely responses to email hotline requests

Serving as the main information resource center for everything “Massachusetts related,” from legislation updates  and education news to career opportunities and economic status updates, Massachusetts Commonwealth needed a solution to streamline the requests coming into its email hotline. These requests typically come from citizens of the state and include a mixture of questions, concerns, and complaints. The requests were all being received through a standard outlook email box without any special functionality. The hotline was loosely managed by a group of state employees who were in charge of reviewing each request, forwarding it to the appropriate department for follow up, and making sure the request had been answered. Some of the challenges with this process include:

• Lack of visibility and tracking: There was no automatic way to log the requests as they came into the email hotline or report on the status.  It was virtually impossible to track whether the email had been sent to the appropriate department or even followed up on at all.

• No accountability: Since the hotline requests were manually forwarded to the appropriate department and not automatically tracked, there was little accountability to ensure that the requests were answered in a timely manner. 

• Inconsistent process:  As the hotline requests came into a general email box and were managed by a group of employees, they were often overlooked during the course of a busy day.  Hotline requests might sit untouched for several days or forwarded to the incorrect department, and then sit for days.   

• Unanswered requests and long wait times:  There was no mechanism to follow up on requests and many were often left unanswered, making the state appear unresponsive to its citizens. The overall lack of consistency and accountability for the requests caused delays in getting answers to the people.

Ultimus' Approach

Using the Ultimus Adaptive BPM Suite, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts built web-based forms to capture originator information and concerns. These forms are available on the state website and contain required fields that must be completed before the message can be sent. All hotline emails are automatically logged in as separate incidents as they are received and are date/time stamped. 

A notification is sent to the appropriate party who is responsible for reviewing and handling hotline requests for that day. The requests are then processed  and an email response is generated and sent back to the originator of the request.  This allows all department and agency heads to track and report on the status of complaints for their respective areas and ensures they are being managed appropriately.

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