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(This is kinda long....)
Everyone who registers with us can do so one of two ways: either online, or by mail. If you register by mail, you have to contact us first to get the correct form, and send it in with both the standard fee and an additional processing fee to cover the "labor cost" of us having to enter everything manually.
Online is both easier and cheaper - it forces you to answer all required questions, so there's no way to skip one and therefore no back-and-forth with letters trying to get it all updated. The vendor who processes payment charges a token fee, plus a small percentage of the total, in addition to our standard registration cost, but it's less than half of the processing fee we charge to register you by mail.
So I talked to someone yesterday who claimed they had gone through the whole form online, got to the payment part at the end, and couldn't make it accept their credit card; so instead of contacting us to walk them through it, they printed off a screenshot and mailed it with a check. Which, naturally, did not include the additional manual processing fee (or any of the answers to the required questions, since they didn't send the correct paper form either). We sent a letter back saying what was needed....
Yesterday they call in because they got the letter and don't want to pay the extra processing fee, but since we already entered the registration fee check, the computer thinks everything is in process and won't allow them to log in online to start over. To fix this, I have to:
1) Get them to give me all their information: name, license number, and listen to the situation to know what they need.
2) Check with our IT "translator" (she is awesome! She can speak Registrations and Computer!) to make sure that what I want to do is actually going to do what I think it's going to do.
3) Check with the analyst who is primarily responsible for this particular kind of registration so she can pull our copy of the letter we sent them and mark it as resolved.
4) Clear out the record of the payment we already received, enter the flags marking them as eligible to register online, remove the flags saying that there is an incomplete registration already in progress, type up a request to Finance for the previous payment to be refunded, and make a notation in the internal system comments explaining what I did and why.
By the time these 4 steps are completed, we are 5 minutes into the phone call.
Since they requested I stay on the phone until they completed the online registration, the remaining 5 minutes were spent listening to them read each question on the form, and follow each one with "Oh my God, why do you need me to answer this again?" "What the hell do you need this for?" "This is a waste of my time. I don't have time to go through all this nonsense."
Somehow, I didn't think my initial reaction of "You are statutorily required to provide this information based on the Occupations Code Title 3, Subtitle B, Chapter 156.001(c)(3)" would go over too well, so I kept my mouth shut.... But keep in mind all these complaints came after I fixed everything they needed fixing, the second half of the phone call only took another 5 minutes, and that was from the beginning of the registration after I got back on the line to the very end where transmission of everything including payment was confirmed.
So I proposed to my coworkers that we institute a new PITA fee. Each caller is permitted no more than two complaints about the length of the registration form per phone call. Subsequent complaints during the same call will result in additional charges being added to the registration processing fee. The debate as to whether these fees should be assessed on a logarithmic scale is not yet concluded.
Seriously, you must have the license to continue in your chosen profession. I know that holding the Power of Life and Death in your hands can lead to some swollen egos, but surely 5 minutes every 2 years to comply with state law and maintain your professional license isn't too much to ask?
Everyone who registers with us can do so one of two ways: either online, or by mail. If you register by mail, you have to contact us first to get the correct form, and send it in with both the standard fee and an additional processing fee to cover the "labor cost" of us having to enter everything manually.
Online is both easier and cheaper - it forces you to answer all required questions, so there's no way to skip one and therefore no back-and-forth with letters trying to get it all updated. The vendor who processes payment charges a token fee, plus a small percentage of the total, in addition to our standard registration cost, but it's less than half of the processing fee we charge to register you by mail.
So I talked to someone yesterday who claimed they had gone through the whole form online, got to the payment part at the end, and couldn't make it accept their credit card; so instead of contacting us to walk them through it, they printed off a screenshot and mailed it with a check. Which, naturally, did not include the additional manual processing fee (or any of the answers to the required questions, since they didn't send the correct paper form either). We sent a letter back saying what was needed....
Yesterday they call in because they got the letter and don't want to pay the extra processing fee, but since we already entered the registration fee check, the computer thinks everything is in process and won't allow them to log in online to start over. To fix this, I have to:
1) Get them to give me all their information: name, license number, and listen to the situation to know what they need.
2) Check with our IT "translator" (she is awesome! She can speak Registrations and Computer!) to make sure that what I want to do is actually going to do what I think it's going to do.
3) Check with the analyst who is primarily responsible for this particular kind of registration so she can pull our copy of the letter we sent them and mark it as resolved.
4) Clear out the record of the payment we already received, enter the flags marking them as eligible to register online, remove the flags saying that there is an incomplete registration already in progress, type up a request to Finance for the previous payment to be refunded, and make a notation in the internal system comments explaining what I did and why.
By the time these 4 steps are completed, we are 5 minutes into the phone call.
Since they requested I stay on the phone until they completed the online registration, the remaining 5 minutes were spent listening to them read each question on the form, and follow each one with "Oh my God, why do you need me to answer this again?" "What the hell do you need this for?" "This is a waste of my time. I don't have time to go through all this nonsense."
Somehow, I didn't think my initial reaction of "You are statutorily required to provide this information based on the Occupations Code Title 3, Subtitle B, Chapter 156.001(c)(3)" would go over too well, so I kept my mouth shut.... But keep in mind all these complaints came after I fixed everything they needed fixing, the second half of the phone call only took another 5 minutes, and that was from the beginning of the registration after I got back on the line to the very end where transmission of everything including payment was confirmed.
So I proposed to my coworkers that we institute a new PITA fee. Each caller is permitted no more than two complaints about the length of the registration form per phone call. Subsequent complaints during the same call will result in additional charges being added to the registration processing fee. The debate as to whether these fees should be assessed on a logarithmic scale is not yet concluded.
Seriously, you must have the license to continue in your chosen profession. I know that holding the Power of Life and Death in your hands can lead to some swollen egos, but surely 5 minutes every 2 years to comply with state law and maintain your professional license isn't too much to ask?
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