The history of communications in relation to administration and service delivery was relatively simple up until quite recently.
• Centuries ago you travelled to where the service was delivered, so this implied that service delivery had to be replicated in each locality
• With the invention of postal services – this allowed interactions to occur remotely, however typically at the speed of the available postal service.
• With the invention of the telephone – this enabled people to interact with one another, however paper was still the modus operandi to ensure that the information was recorded correctly
• Now with the advent of technologies such as the internet, e-mail, mobile phones and SMS (never mind video) – we have introduced as many new channels of interaction in the past 30 years, as we had in the past 300 years.

Interaction times have now reduced from days to minutes or seconds, and interactions have gone from formal, very structured information exchanges (how many people are still able to write a letter, is this still taught in school?) to high-frequency, informal, bite-size pieces of information exchange. Paper is no longer the only form of admissible evidence, audio, video, emails and other digital information are acceptable.

Similarly in this time – we have moved from an environment where service providers live locally, know those individuals to whom they are providing services, and own the interaction or service delivery from beginning to end. Thanks to Henry Ford, and the concept of the production line, administration and service interactions have largely moved in the same direction – whereby the majority of aspects of the service are disaggregated (occasionally by channel – witness the rise of the call centre!).

This in itself has created many challenges within organizations – whereby a single instance of service delivery is handled by a much larger number of representatives (and indeed technologies). Indeed where some of these interactions are outsourced to other organisations (Business Process Outsourcing), this can make it even more challenging to manage effectively.

For service users – navigating the various contact channel paths – and possibly repeating similar information constantly to each in turn – occasionally creates a less-than-perfect service delivery experience. Equally the direction of travel in relation to channel interaction is only going to get more varied over time.

Undoubtedly our brave new world offers many advantages in terms of communication and interaction, yet we still struggle on occasions to deal with instances where service delivery is sub-optimal. In the latter case – this is why technology such as BPM and Process-oriented Case Management have seen a surge in interest to remedy some of these gaps to ensure that all service interactions should enjoy the same quality of experience.