THE CHALLENGE OF PROVIDING CONSULAR SERVICE TODAY A Discussion Paper

Transcription

1 THE CHALLENGE OF PROVIDING CONSULAR SERVICE TODAY A Discussion Paper May 2012

2 The challenge has remained the same, governments still deliver services to citizens living, travelling or working abroad, but the playing field and even the nature of the players has changed.

3 With advanced technology and instantaneous communication, the world has gotten smaller and the service expectation levels continuously grow larger. According to research from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), international travel has doubled since 1990 and is set to double again by With a growth in travel come increased expectations by the public: greater demands, inquiries and complaints. Given the ease of access to 24 hour news media and the rapid growth of social media, citizens have become more sophisticated, and more impatient with any perceived delay in communications from or actions by their governments. All of this change is compounded by the reality of fiscal restraint that besets government agencies. Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) are being asked to do more, with less. The new realities of our world have made a significant impact on the ability of governments to aid citizens while they re abroad. The inaugural Consularis Conference co-hosted by WorldReach Software and CSC in November 2011 brought together leading consular affairs experts from around the world including representatives from Canada, USA, European Union, UK, Mexico, Asia/Pacific and South America to discuss these new realities and how MFAs are adapting. Citizen-centric The impetus for much of this change has come from the evolution of citizen expectations with regard to travel and living abroad. Citizens have become much more involved in and educated about the sorts of services and resources that are available to them. With an abundance of information available online such as travel advisories, citizens are better able to keep themselves informed. The sophistication and resourcefulness of citizens can be seen during any major crisis. With the establishment of EU agreements/treaties any European citizen can be provided help by another European nation s embassy/consulate. This leads to the possibility of citizens engaging in consular shopping, approaching different EU states to find the quickest and least expensive evacuation route or for other consular services. One of the realities for governments in aiding citizens abroad is the opt-in when necessary nature that citizens apply to traveller registration programs. Traveller registration systems are a proactive measure that has significant potential to aid MFAs when understanding the impact and size of a crisis as it relates to their citizens. Yet citizens are reluctant to pre-register unless they are in peril or feel an immediate perceived risk. During crisis situations there are countless stories of citizens being critical of their government s response, and voicing their displeasure publicly to the media. Yet much of this difficulty can be mitigated if the citizen takes the proactive measure to pre-register themselves and be in communication with the MFA.

4 Communication We are living in a period where there is a consumerization of IT. Citizens are now the ones pushing the latest IT requirements onto government agencies, forcing them to adapt and support mobile devices and social media. The number of communication channels that have grown over the past decade have created a unique challenge for governments. MFAs have information coming from many diverse sources at unknown intervals. Social media has become a conveyor of breaking news not only for citizens but for the MFA. Those people on the ground, armed with mobile devices have become instantaneous citizen journalists reporting descriptions, images and audio in near realtime. In MFA Operation Centres, these expanded communication channels are useful because the information comes in so much quicker; on the consular side though, the expectation to respond more rapidly increases in parallel. For the most part, the usage of social media by MFAs has been limited to outbound communication; with Facebook and Twitter being used by the MFA to broadcast information. MFAs are challenged to have the time and/or resources to monitor citizens social media platforms and engage in 2-way communication, even though that expectation likely exists with the citizen. Regardless of how many avenues the MFA uses to broadcast its message, clear and consistent messaging across all channels is pivotal. Experimenting with social media will continue in the next year particularly in large crises to understand the key value drivers for consular and MFA communication and its costs. How are governments evolving? With mounting fiscal restraint and budget cutbacks, combined with citizens that are travelling more frequently, MFAs are in the unenviable position of providing more with less. So how are governments coping with this new reality? By taking pro-active measures to manage the expectations of citizens, MFAs are clearly defining the boundaries of what they can and can t provide and setting the expected turnaround times for such things as passport renewals, or how long the wait times are within a consular service for legal & notarial services. These limitations are being communicated through such means as website communications and clever advertisements. 4

5 MFAs are also taking a comprehensive and critical look at where their Ministry s efforts are best spent. With wide-ranging consular service delivery areas that MFAs offer, an embassy/consulate can become overburdened with all the tasks and citizens they must help. In an effort to free up embassy/consulate resources to focus their time where their efforts are best served, MFAs have begun exploring outsourcing services such as prison and hospital visits to other organizations such as NGOs, or to other countries through sharing/cooperation agreements (e.g. Bilateral agreements for consular service and crisis support are often made between like-minded countries). Alternatively MFAs are increasingly adopting the regionalization or centralization of consular or administrative services. After-hours embassy calls may now be handled by a regionalized or even centralized call centre as a costs savings or means to achieve economies of scale. Hub and Spoke models have been implemented, where day-to-day work is done by locally engaged staff and case management can be done from a regional office by a Consular manager who provides policy advice, training, contingency planning and surge capacity to all the embassies/consulates within the region. The use of Honorary Consuls greatly differs between MFAs. Some MFAs have a vast network of Honorary Consuls across the globe that they rely upon to fill the gaps of consular service delivery between posts. In some cases initial case work or issuance of travel documents (provided the proper course and accreditation has been met) is done by an Honorary Consul. Operating mainly on a volunteer basis or at a small compensation rate, costing the MFA only a fraction of what a MFA staff member abroad would, the usage of Honorary Consuls may see an increase in scope of responsibilities and numbers. In the case of Visas there has been a growing trend that has seen governments outsource to the private sector to alleviate some of the more labour intensive work. The introduction of biometrics for passports and visas has proven to be a game changer. The capture of a biometric has introduced a step in the process that otherwise would not be required in many cases, i.e. the presence of the applicant. Biometrics have created a new dynamic that forces governments to balance the requirement for strengthening borders and facilitating a customer service experience in a global environment while also trying to keep costs low. The establishment of commercial visa application/processing centres has seen private sector firms take the lead on receiving applicant enrollment information to capturing biometric data, which have freed up the government agencies to focus on more critical elements around the adjudication process or more complex classes of visa requests.

6 The Role of Technology In addition to some of the process changes MFAs are adopting, the reliance on technology has increased. The usage of traveller registration systems has proven to be a useful tool for MFAs in tracking and communicating with citizens, particularly in large crisis situations as an online surge capacity. There are huge spikes in communication between citizens and MFAs during crises. Having a registration system with well-populated citizen information avoids government from having to rely heavily on complicated multi-government, country and commercial operations such as trying to triangulate mobile phones or obtaining manifest lists. As detailed, the communication behaviour of citizens has changed significantly with the adoption of social media. This rise has ushered in the advent of multi-channel communications. Social media is an example of the experimentation ongoing by MFAs to balance/test new technology. One of the challenges for MFAs and other organizations with regards to social media is determining evaluation criteria to determine its effectiveness. Tracking followers and the number of responses generated through these channels is simple but understanding the benefits vs. costs balance that social media can bring, needs further investigation. The influx of information flowing through these multi-channel communications into the MFA has also given rise to new technology. MFAs are increasingly looking to technology solutions such as situational awareness and information management portals to harness the flow of disparate information into a meaningful consolidated view. These portals can act as a management briefing tool that transforms the information that normally would have been in separate silos or even unavailable and combine it to provide a common situational awareness picture throughout all phases of a crisis. Video teleconferencing capabilities have been used as a communications tool between operational headquarters facilities and local embassies/consulates. Another usage that has been explored is that of interview tool for the visa application process. In-person interviews have been shown to slow down the visa application process and in some cases with extreme wait times, act as a deterrent for legitimate travellers. The UK has focused more efforts on other elements for adjudication. Video teleconferencing is not without its limitations, but the technology is much improved and can be adapted well for visa interviewing, including by integrating it with remote biometric authentication.

7 Additionally self-service kiosks have been trialed by governments for both the visa and the passport application process. But like video teleconferencing the technology has shown some initial limitations that require further work. Self-service kiosks may require a lot of guidance, thus limiting the potential resource savings. Conclusion Despite all the changes that have occurred over the last few years with regards to global travel and the sophistication of citizens, MFAs have found a way to evolve through process changes, adoption of technology, communicating better with citizens to manage expectations, and prioritization of efforts. Communication has shown perhaps the greatest change over the last 10 years, and for all the new challenges it has created, it has also served as a multi-channel platform to set and manage citizen expectations through transparent and consistent messaging. Working under stricter fiscal restraints have made the evolution process more of a challenge and one that requires creative answers to difficult questions.

8 WorldReach Software Corporation A Proven Consular Partner 1420 Blair Place, Suite 500 Ottawa, ON, K1J 9L8 Canada T: F: marketing@worldreach.com A global leader in providing technology enabled business solutions and services Fairview Park Drive Falls Church VA USA T: F: globalcitizenservices@csc.com WorldReach Software. All rights reserved WorldReach Software assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of the information presented, which is subject to change without notice.