The DMV

In my home county, our County Clerk recently won election to the State Assembly and will be departing her position at year-end. In New York, the County Clerk usually runs the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office. I am reminded of a post I made on the DMV and I thought I would re-post here under my Musings section.

The trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles, aka the DMV, has for decades been characterized by unpleasant customer experience.

News flash - 1) It doesn’t have to be that way. 2) It isn’t always the case.

I feel for the DMV staffers. They have been grouped with trips to the dentist, visits from annoying in-laws, and a virtual call to a customer service agent (who you only got to after pressing a whole bunch of buttons because the “menu has recently changed”) whose manager is not available and who can’t help you telephonically.

But the DMV workers are often misunderstood and maligned for no good reason. When I was the CAO in Livingston County, the DMV was run by a series of elected officials (I worked with three County Clerks) who ran for office to secure the position. The rest of the few dozen staff were appointed and civil service positions. They ran the office with a professionalism and laser focus on proper, courteous and fast service to the residents and visitors. Yes we had lines at times. Yes, we had numbers to pull from. But we also had (and still have) residents from neighboring counties driving sometimes a great distance, to transact their activities at our DMV due to our reputation for service excellence.

And, when Covid hit we pivoted to an appointment system. Life threw us a curveball and we hit it out of the park. We took a good customer service experience, one that already defied the preconceived notion that the DMV experience had to be dreadful, and we made a good process even better.

The lessons here are plentiful. Don’t let assumptions rule the day. Don’t let a reputation persist that isn’t grounded in fact. If others perpetuate stereotypes of poor service, so be it, be different. Strive for excellence. Focus on the customer. Steal elements of the private sector (that work well) and commit to operating in that environment as a public sector agency. The trip to the DMV can be…..gasp….enjoyable.