I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

I thought I’d wind down social engagements this week, but despite that, it was still hectic. I managed to spend some time with the family – had lunch with the brother and folks at Tiong Bahru Market for the first time, despite living nearby for so long while I was here, and painted Chinatown red with my folks. Today we went to Sentosa again.

One of the tasks I needed to complete while I was back this time was to renew my passport. I heard that it was a pretty straightforward exercise, and it would only take a week. They were wrong.

It took less than that.

It was such an easy, efficient and pleasant experience, I am totally impressed. Probably with the process. So here’s how it went.

Last Friday, 20 Feb, after uhming and awwing, I check out the ICA website for information on renewing my passport. There is a web-application option (APPLES). It costs $10 less than doing it at the ICA. You’ll need to submit your passport photo online. They provide the specs in detail. Totally cool.

I set up my gorillapod, put on a nice top, and take a couple of photos. I picked one that’d work, and had to correct the white balance, levels and crop the picture to spec. That took longer than the actual passport application process.

After I submit the photo – I had to pay for the passport. That was the bit that was a little iffy, because it required a new version of JRE that I didn’t have. As a result, I had to abandon the process and start a new one, because hitting “Back” doesn’t screws the system up. But anyway. I found it a little odd that they didn’t ask for my address in the submission form, just a mobile number and email, along with other identification details. But I thought, since I’m doing this online, perhaps it was the expected behaviour to complete the process completely electronically. So I didn’t put much more thought into it.

ICA website states it takes about 3-4 days to process. So I figured, perhaps they were right, processing + actual passport creation = 7 days or so. I figured they’d contact me the following Friday, and I could pick it up the week after. Not too shabby.

On Tuesday Feb 24, 3 working days after submission, I received an email from ICA saying my passport was ready for collection the next day. If I make an appointment, it would probably cut down the waiting time. They include a link to make an appointment with the email. I set the appointment for Friday, 27 Feb at 1.15pm.

On Wednesday Feb 25, we checked the letterbox. Received snail mail from ICA saying my passport is ready, please bring this mail along at collection. Gee, they must’ve gotten my address from my IC number! Putting two and two together, I decided to bring everything – whatever that was mentioned in the email, along with the physical snail mail notification to the ICA to collect my passport.

When I got the to ICA, signs indicated collection on the second level. I saw a few machines that were giving out queue numbers, as well as an information desk. I wanted to head to information because I was half an hour early for my appointed time, but since there was no one at the queue number machine but people at the information booth, I got a queue number first. Turns out that was where the snail mail notification was useful. There was a barcode that the machine read, and identified me instantly and gave me a number.

Queue number in hand, I ask the lady at the booth if it was ok that I was half an hour early for my appointment. Could I get my passport sooner? She said, no problem. And was going to get me a queue number when she saw I had one. She said, it’s ok. The system knows I’m early, but no matter. They’ll call when they’re ready, and even though it seems like there are 122 numbers in front of me, I won’t be called in that order. That’s nice, I thought. I found a seat, sat down, saw a moving ad about finding out my wait time by SMSing my queue number to a phone number and was about to hit “send” when my number flashed on the board. It took all of 6 minutes.

The nice lady at the counter greeted me, asked for my IC and old passport (which she punched holes in), took my thumbprint and signature, and I was done. I spent 10 minutes in total in the building. It was quick, pleasant and the counter service was excellent. I really enjoyed it!

I mean, they had all the information in a database to the point that they knew from me scanning a barcode who I was, which passport I was picking up, that I was early for my appointment (it showed my appointment time on the queue number chit), but the system was still smart enough to schedule me in without me having to wait for my appointed slot. Some thought must really have gone into the whole process planning. Very well done, ICA!

There are a few things that they could do to perfect the entire flow:

• Integrate the payment portion better – make the flow more like the Amazon experience – it’s familiar, it flows well. Right now you’ve to leave the ICA site to complete payment. That’s sort of iffy, not to mention suspicious. The whole JRE installation portion is screwed up. It’s circular, and if it would’ve been daunting to an internet novice.
• Be consistent with the messages via email and snail mail. In the email (which is received earlier) they should state clearly that the citizen should expect to receive physical notification that the passport was ready, and to bring that, along with the expiring passport and IC (these two were mentioned specifically though) when picking up the passport.
  In the snail mail notification, it gave the address of the ICA along with a message to collect the passport after 25 Feb. There was no mention of making an appointment to save time (and corresponding URL) or to bring the old passport and IC.
• Set expectations on how the process should work. I found out only at the ICA building that I should get a queue number, and that I should flash my IC or snail mail notification barcode to get the queue number. That could be communicated on both email and snail mail, instead of having the counter staff communicate it repetitively. Because thats where everyone would head to, since there’s doubt.
• Fix the appointment scheduler – this is a minor detail, but it really bugged me. The appointment scheduler is a shared application. However, on Firefox (I didn’t test on the other browsers) when it came to the page that displayed a physical calendar in squares, I had no clue each square was clickable. Usually anything clickable changes colour when you mouse over, or displays a link (something underlined). I had to double-click (?! who does that on a web page?!?!!) on a date-square to be given timing options to choose from. Describing that process as “not very intuitive” is an understatement. That expected behaviour is not realistic. There weren’t even clear instructions on the page, and that’s totally unacceptable. It’s an easy fix, so fix that first.

All in all though, I’m proud of the job they’ve done. This is how a first world country should work! But not all first countries function this efficiently. Anyone working there should also be proud of the level and standard of service that the ICA provides.