Rethinking the government's visa complaint forms

An innovative design for a global complaints service increased customer satisfaction from 31% to 63%.

Background

In 2018, over 2.9 million people were granted visas to visit, work, study or live in the UK. To help meet their needs, we were asked to redevelop UKVI’s existing UK complaints service for global rollout within 6 months.

Brief

Following a discovery of the end-to-end service, we identified that:

• 40% of 'complaints' were actually enquires or requests for help, rather than complaints
• just 30% of people who had given feedback on using the service said they were satisfied
• submitted complaints often lacked detail, requiring the complaints team to go back for more information

“I have a problem in processing my application payment for more than a week. I want to cancel the application but I cannot find any link to do anything. I am stuck and it is because it is a technical issue.” Request for help misdirected to the complaints team

Stakeholders were also frustrated that the large number of general enquiries entering the service inflated complaint statistics in management reports.

Mapping out how users will be triaged in a sub-section of the service

What we did

We began with a short discovery to gain an understanding of the service’s users. We engaged with 40 internal stakeholders, analysed data from Google Analytics and reviewed 6 months worth of complaints.

Based on the findings, our design team proposed a very different approach from the generic complaints form. They designed a triaging service, posing simple questions which routed users to relevant information on GOV.UK or UKVI’s helpline, with an option to continue making a complaint.

The complaint form itself was then redesigned to be clearer for users who speak English as a second language and to encourage more informative responses. We tested the service by running a selection of real complaints through it and inviting stakeholders to carry out a robust review.

A page from the new service viewed on mobile

Results

The new service is clear, easy to use and meets the needs of the department’s customers and case working teams.

Early feedback showed a substantial increase in customer satisfaction from 31% in 2019 to 63% in 2020. Users no longer have a frustrating online experience compounding their dissatisfaction.

The service went live worldwide on time and on budget within 6 months of us starting work. The clients have expressed to us how happy they are with our successful delivery.