Why Does the DMV Suck So Much?
The Department of Motor Vehicles is known for it’s unhappy workers and horribly long waits, but does it have to be so dreadful?
The DMV is a special kind of hell. Nothing brings together even the staunchest of enemies like a shared hatred of the DMV. Everyone knows how unnecessarily painful it is to walk into one of these. The walls are grey and peeling, the musky smell of pencils and decaying carpet fills your nostrils, and the hard plastic chairs are teeming with pubescent teenagers sweating ahead of their driving tests. The waiting game takes hours and somehow every DMV ensures that there is never cellular reception to take refuge in. You’re stuck in a time warp that slows down time yet consumes hours from you. Often, you arrive and don’t know exactly where to go. There are 4 different types of lines and none have proper signage indicating what exactly each line is for. From the crowd, there never fails to emerge a grouchy plump man in an oversized parka, barking at you to get out of the way and choose a line. Palpably, the words “customer service” have never been uttered within these walls. In other instances, you wait in line for hours only to realize at the counter that — nope, one proof of address was not enough. The misleading website actually meant that you needed your social security card AND your birth certificate AND a utility bill! If you’re ever in the mood to dig up every single document you have about your identity, bring it all to one place, and risk getting it stolen, the DMV is your place to go.
You’re stuck in a time warp that slows down time yet consumes hours from you.
But don’t take my word for it. You would be hard pressed to find a DMV with a decent business rating. In fact, none of the DMVs in my immediate vicinity currently have more than 3 out of 5 stars on Google.
Many have even made money off of consumer disgust. Last year, some guy made $180 waiting in line at the DMV all day because people were so eager to leave that they were willing to pay him up to $50 to take his spot in line. If you’re rich, you could even hire a service like this one to deal with the DMV for you:
So why does the DMV suck so much? It boils down to one sad fact: they don’t have to not suck.
Firstly, like almost all government agencies, there is no competition that forces players to level up their services. Everyone is required by law to interact with the DMV and fulfill their civic duty. Privatizing the DMV could be a great solution for customer service, but a terrible solution if you care about data unification and collection, which our system undoubtedly values more highly.
Secondly, perverse incentives at the DMV ensure high wait times. DMV workers are fired for policy violations, but no one is fired for being slow or making customers wait longer to ensure accuracy. As a result, employees care most about following protocol, regardless of its impact to anything else in the ecosystem. A terrible experience at the DMV might actually compel people to try to avoid it altogether and risk receiving fines or other tickets down the road, resulting in more revenue for the government.
Thirdly, there is no catalyst for change. No one has ever been re-elected or voted into office because they’ve vowed to improve the DMV. Truthfully, most of us visit the DMV so infrequently that improving it probably wouldn’t make it into our top 10 list of things we’d like to change about our communities. There are usually bigger fish to fry.
Despite these factors, there is a case to be made for upgrading the experience. When people aren’t dying inside at the sight of the DMV, they are more likely to treat workers with respect when it’s their turn, resulting in a better experience for employees and potentially stronger retention rates. In my handful of trips to the office, I’ve witnessed firsthand several episodes of furious customers yelling obscenities at these poor workers, who, with bored glazed eyes, look on like they’ve seen it all before. Happier workers leads to better customer service and this creates a virtuous cycle. Moreover, if decreasing wait times and increasing throughput is possible, the DMV has opportunity to earn much more revenue per day. The additional working capital could be deployed to open more offices, increase employee pay, or upgrade technology.
There are several cost effective improvements that might radically change the consumer experience:
- Music: imagine you went to the DMV and it was playing Top 40 radio. In your chair, you’re withholding the urge to sing along and tap your feet. Out of the corner of your eye you see others bobbing their heads. Perhaps even the DMV workers are in a brighter mood after listening to some Travis Scott. Music can have a dramatic impact on the broader atmosphere. Just as it boosts your mood at the gym or after a hard day, it can go a long way to insulate people from feelings of boredom and misery.
- TV programming: turn on the news or a local sports game. This doesn’t need to be a complex or expensive operation. Experiment with just one TV for the entire room. Distractions are a great way to pass time and even bond with fellow waiting customers during a close football game.
- Goal based on service time: employees should rightfully be expected to execute with few to no mistakes. However, this is no excuse for incompetence. We need stricter accountability for workers in order to ensure they excel at both accuracy and efficiency. Goaling based on service time means we are evaluating employees based on how long they take to serve a customer on average. This could even be weighted by the service (e.g. a written license test might take longer than a driver’s license renewal) such that each type of appointment has a specific average time requirement it should be expected to be completed by.
The DMV doesn’t have to be the stuff of nightmares. But to move forward and make progress, it’s clear that we could all use a little more care and empathy — from workers to customers and customers to workers.
