National Pardon Centre becomes a 2005 C.I.P.A. Winner

National Pardon Centre

Web-based Client Acquisition & Fulfilment

Established in 2002, the National Pardon Centre (NPC) is a non-profit organization that assists individuals with Canadian pardon applications. A pardon granted by the Canadian government removes the criminal record from the public file and permits an individual who has reformed his or her behaviour to proceed in life without the encumbrance of a criminal record. The NPC also processes US entry waiver applications for people who wish to cross the US border without risk of refusal. Operating in the heart of Montreal and providing services across Canada, it is the first bilingual walk-in service of its kind.

Challenge

The United States has tightened border restrictions and increased scrutiny of visitors attempting to enter the country. The FBI can now legally gather information from RCMP databases without request. This means that US border guards can type a name into their computer system to retrieve any criminal file the RCMP has recorded. Any individual with a record of a criminal offence is barred by law from entering the US. Options are few: avoid the border completely or apply for a US entry waiver.

Understandably, at the NPC demand for services has skyrocketed. Full-time staff have increased to seven from the original two.

NPC had another challenge in meeting the sensitive needs of clients. Typically, individuals applying for a pardon or waiver participate in face-to-face meetings or telephone calls, during which information is elicited from them and various forms are completed. Often the embarrassment of having a criminal record causes them to feel ashamed to encounter NPC staff.

Objectives

NPC wanted to implement a comprehensive, interactive online system that closely conformed to the needs of users and NPC staff while reducing costs. Management hoped that an online interactive system would enable staff to access clients' personal information without having direct contact with them.

Solution

The ultimate system evolved incrementally over time from a simple collection ofonline brochures, with help from a Toronto-based Web-site solutions company, 9th sphere. Today, a visitor to www.nationalpardon.org completes an inquiry form and the system, based on the prospective client's preferred method of contact and service request, validates qualifications, sends appropriate responses automatically, collects payment and completes the application process without human intervention.

Administrators complete and process internal documents and send instructions relevant to each client's needs with just the press of a button. If a prospective client does not respond within the requisite time period, the system automatically generates e-mail reminders. All client-targeted features of the system are provided in both English and French. An integrated customer-relationship-management (CRM) system automatically tracks customer data, administrators' notes and history logs, and reports client status and monthly revenue.

The site is also an excellent vehicle for disseminating accurate information on criminal records, Canadian pardons and US border regulations, about which there is widespread misunderstanding.

Benefits of the new system include:

• An increase of 400 per cent a month in prospect inquiries, compared with the first year of operation. Almost 85 per cent of all contacts come from the Web site and CRM system.
• Client acquisition has increased to between 200 and 250 a month from 20 to 50.
• Client management is so efficient that the current staff can handle this increased workload as well as 2,000 existing clients.
• The Web system has resulted in a reduction in paper and stationery costs of 35 per cent.
• Counsellors now spend 80 per cent less time on the phone with clients. This permits greater focus on client acquisition and public education.
• Clients benefit from a discreet and simplified application process and faster response time.

"Once we had established that the service could be offered so effectively with an IT solution, it was the people involved in the project that really made it work," explains Michael Ashby, co-director of NPC.

"On the design side in Montreal, we had a very passionate group who believed that it was the right way to take the company. And on the technical side we were able to find a very good Web solutions provider who worked hard with us and provided excellent programming solutions. It was ultimately the result of a very good team effort."

Innovative Use of Technology

The processing application is written in the open-source language PHP using JavaScript and MySQL databases. The innovation of this system is in the logic of processing the data to meet the NPC's needs and procedures.This is made possible through both the programming logic and by scheduling automated processes that operate at predefined time intervals.

A 2005 CIPA Winner!

For its exceptional and innovative application of information technology to solve real-world business problems and bring greater benefit to all its stakeholders, National Pardon Centre has been awarded a Silver Award of Excellence from the 2005 Canadian Information Productivity Awards in the Efficiency and Operational Improvements Not For Profit category.

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