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Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai branch
Thailand

The Problem

Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai branch, located at the Government Center of Ministry of Finance in Chiang Mai City Hall, is responsible for excise tax collection and suppress the excise regulation offenders by collecting excise tax from specific goods and services such as liquor, tobacco, playing cards, petrol and petroleum products, and automobile. There are 6 administrators and approximately 10,000 entrepreneurs per year. The populations are diverse in races, languages, education levels and cultures. Their principal incomes are from agriculture and conservation tourism due to the landscape of Chiang Mai province is mountain and plain. For the past years, Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai branch, has encountered a great number of dissatisfaction in services from the entrepreneurs.
Particularly the entrepreneurs contacting the liquor, tobacco and playing cards license renewal sector, and community liquor tax payment through complaint channel reveal the result of service satisfaction which has been reduced to 75% caused from the inconvenience and difficulty in travelling especially the community liquor tax payment service that has 8 steps to complete with different kinds of payment detail depending on liquor type, degree and size of containers of which the entrepreneurs are elderly people and less educated, 60% of entrepreneurs are elder, female and some are hill tribe with low education, have small trade business with daily income of 90 – 100 baht. Some villages are 70 kilometers far from the Office and the landscape is mostly mountain. In rainy season, some villages need to use animal for transportation such as elephant. Sometimes, the roads are cut off due to the flood and unable to travel. These make the travelling more difficult, take long time, high expense about 200-300 baht per travelling to renew the license of which the renewal fee cost only 31 baht. Therefore, 40% of entrepreneurs do not want to contact the Office and renew their licenses according to their licenses’ expiration date and decide to avoid excise tax payment. This affects the entrepreneurs to be sued and penalty fined, and with their low educations, they may be injustice treated by the administrators or disguised administrators to collect more charges. On the other hand, if the entrepreneurs do not contact the Office for license renewal or avoid paying the excise tax, the state’s income will not achieve the goal and will affect the regional budget for community improvements.
Due to the difficulties of providing good services, it is the key turning point for all administrators at the excise Office to improve service quality through an “Impressive Service Office”. The year 2009 was the beginning of a significant improvement plan. Vision and Policy were set clearly to lead organization and the operation plan was set from the need of customer. The excise Office continuously introduced 10 projects during 2009-2012 to solve these problems which were solved for improving satisfaction level of customers. Eventually, the excise Office has reached the goal of being an “Impressive Service Office” in 2012.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
From causes of difficulty, reaching the state services, delay services, too many process steps and filling up forms make customers dissatisfied. Excise Office of Chiang Mai has launched a definition of an “Impressive Service Office”, and received Thailand Public Service Award 2012, which is the beginning of problem solving for community service by developing departments and improve the service quality as follow;
For those who live in distance and are inconvenient to have liquor license renewal, the Office has added another channel to reach the service by post mail. The Office will send a liquor license renewal request form by post mail to customer and customer can send the filled form with a bill of exchange back to the Office.
For those who would like to contact the Office personally, the fast service is improved to facilitate customer with One Stop Service to lessen steps and time spending and applying information technology on process such as lessen community liquor tax payment process from 7 steps with 60 minutes per person to 1 step with only 5 minutes per person by using barcode machine to read the barcode on license, print the license with computer system instead of writing forms and adjust the ratio of customers in December by sending renewal request form and specify date of service contact. Moreover, “Sura Profile” is a program to ease the entrepreneurs as the administrators will apply the program to print out the tax list form and auto-calculate tax instead of having entrepreneurs filling up forms. Most of the entrepreneurs are elder and less educated, therefore, the Office has launched “May Rai Card” for community liquor entrepreneurs to use when making the tax payment and they do not need to fill up forms, only present the “May Rai Card” and inform the tax payment request, then the administrators will proceed to complete the process.
For limited space area, the Office has adjusted an activation system for modern organization as “Smart Office” with facilities for impressive service such as sufficient service counter, seats for customers, free drinking water, orderly queue card system, clear signs and labels, approximate time to complete the process, well-equipped service devices. Also, information administrators to give advice and help elderly customers and illiterate customers who would like to fill up request forms.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
From problems that entrepreneurs are dissatisfied in liquor, tobacco and playing cards license renewal and tax payment services, the Chief of Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai Branch, has an idea to adjust workflow to be more efficient and meet the customers’ needs and expectations. Hence, the Office emphasis the participation of personnel in every level to improve the service quality by setting up 4 QCC with cross function teams. Each team needs to search for causes and conditions of problem, analyze the dissatisfaction by hearing and evaluate opinion, need, expectation, suggestion and complaint from the customers in every sector through vary channels such as satisfaction survey, focus group of entrepreneurs, information hearing, suggestions via website web board in order to find an opportunity to improve the service and set up priority arrangement which QCC team has consultants from central management improvement department of Excise Office to advise the internal and external organization problem analysis. When the problem is acknowledged, QCC team will propose the problem solving by conducting “FIRST” strategy as a guideline and assigning personnel in related departments to be responsible for taking action according to the strategy. Excise tax collection sector is responsible for service improvement; lessen process steps and time spending, develop “Sura Profile” system and issue “May Rai Card” to use when making community liquor tax payment. Administrative sector is responsible for improving area to be modern, provide facilities and well-equipped service devices for customers and assigning legal sector to follow up the evaluation, conclusion and manage workflow standard.
In addition, the Chief has given an opportunity for personnel of the Office to continuously observe the private sector in order to apply the leading organization‘s administrative and new concepts in management to benchmark with each sector and encourage the administrators to convert the point of view and have creative and vary ideas.
In conclusion, the FIRST strategy makes Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai Branch, fulfill the need and expectation of community, bring smiles and utmost satisfactions to customers which is conformed to a good community management that aim the state department to manage the organization for happiness of people.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The gathering of complaints and dissatisfactions in services from community leads to an action to solve the problem. Therefore, the setting of organization improvements has been in charge since 2009 with an objective goal to provide service satisfaction to customers and encourage them to feel happy and impressed with the Office, administrators, service process and facilities to lessen complaints. Also, to promote a better image the organization and increase the state’s tax collection income by applying “FIRST” strategy which is a model to achieve organization objective goal.
The “FIRST” strategy is the core of organization improvement with 5 aspects of improvement as followings;
1. Facility: Facilitate to fulfill customers’ needs and expectations i.e. sufficient seats for customers waiting for the service, free drinking water, free internet service, well-equipped service devices and additional health service devices such as sphygmomanometer and weighing apparatus, and provide pesticide made from property in dispute tobacco to customers.
2. International: Upgrade the service to international standard i.e. customers do not need to fill up request or tax list form to lessen the difficulty and mistake in filling form.
3. Reduce: To lessen workflow steps and time to complete the service process, we provide “One Stop Service” which is more comfortable, fast, less waiting time i.e. wrap the license renewal process into only 1 step and spend only 2 minutes per person.
4. Smart Office: The Office has renovated the area into a modern style to facilitate the customers and administrators in order to promote the good image of the organization.
5. Technology: To support an action with efficiency, the administrator team has developed a program called “Sura Profile” for printing tax list from and auto-calculate tax instead of entrepreneurs filling form by writing, and provide “May Rai Card” (mеɪ-rɑɪ) for community liquor entrepreneurs to file for tax payment process.
Following the “FIRST” strategy, administrators in every level from the executives to activation agents will participate in organization improvement by having an activity “Quality Cycle Control: QCC” and create “Cross Function Team” to analyze causes of problem, solutions, conclusions and take action to be an “Impressive Service Office”.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
From the service dissatisfactions and numbers of customers has decreased, the under-target income leads the Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai Branch, to set up policy an “Impressive Service Office” of which an objective is to create smile and offer utmost satisfaction for customers, including more state’s excise tax income by focusing on personnel in every level in service quality development. The project started since early 2009 by QCC team to search for causes of problems, solutions, improvement and progress plans, and set up “FIRST” strategy to direct the development management. In late 2009, there were adjustments of steps and time spending in process of liquor, tobacco and playing cards license renewal from 7 steps to only 1 step and lessen time spending from 60 minutes to only 2 minutes per person by cooperation from the Excise Office in applying barcode system to read the license barcodes and license printing with computer system instead of handwriting.
In 2010, the budget, supported by the Excise Office, was used for building renovation to modernize and make the place a “Smart Office” including facilities such as sufficient seat for customers, free drinking water, free internet access and provide well-equipped service devices to increase efficiency in workflow.
In 2011, the steps and time spending in community liquor tax payment service process is reduced from 8 steps with 60 minutes to 1 step with only 5 minutes by the administrators of the excise Office of Chiang Mai, who improves a program called “Sura Profile” for the use in printing tax list form and auto-calculate tax instead of filling up form by entrepreneurs together with issuing “May Rai Card” for community liquor entrepreneurs to present when making an excise tax payment.
The improvement of “Sura Profile” and “May Rai Card” used in the service process of Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai Branch, is a great success in 2012. The Excise Office of Chiang Mai has a plan to expand the method into another 5 branches in the regional responsible in order to meet the organization standard.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
From the management of an “Impressive Service Office” project, there were problems and obstacles found from the beginning, especially space limitation. The Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai Branch is situated in the government center of Ministry of Finance which is quite restricted. The difficulty in managing car park, hygiene restrooms and direction signs, moreover, the Office is located on the 3rd floor, these are the inconvenience that customers will encounter and leads to service and facility dissatisfaction. However, the Office solved the problems by renovating the area to be a Smart Office which is modernized and beautiful, additional drinking water and health corner, seats for customers, hygiene restrooms, car park and direction signs for customers. These facilitate customers with impressive and satisfied service and location.
For readiness in tools, equipments and technology, with limited budget, the Office has to set a priority issue to request the budget support from the Excise Office of Ministry of Finance for tools and equipments purchase such as barcode scanners, computers and printers in order to be sufficient to the service workflow.
For administrative section, due to the less number of service administrators and the complicated documents used in the community liquor service process, together with the entrepreneurs are elder and less educated, therefore, the Office decided to lessen the service process by gathering the agents with well-versed computer skills to create and develop “Sura Profile” to use in printing tax list form and auto-calculate tax instead of having entrepreneurs filling up form with their handwritings and also issuing “May Rai Card” for community liquor entrepreneurs to present when making excise tax payment. This can reduce service steps and time spending from 8 steps to only 1 step and spending only 5 minutes per person which customers are very satisfied.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
From the service development, improvement, steps and time spending along with facilities to enhance the service quality by creating an “Impressive Service Office” which the project has brought up the financial, technical and human resources for improvements. The financial resource, supported by the Excise Office of Ministry of Finance, is applied for location modernization and facilities such as sufficient seats for customers, free drinking water, free internet access and well-equipped service devices. In Addition, sufficient office devices such as barcode readers, computers, printers are prepared in order to handle numbers of customers in the responsible region approximately 10,000 customers per year and service request 30,000 times per year.
The technical resource, cooperated by the Excise Office of Ministry of Finance, is applied for barcode system in reading license barcode. This will fasten the license renewal with only 2 minutes per person. Moreover, the project is being cooperated by agents of the Office for developing “Sura Profile” to print out the tax list form and auto-calculate tax instead of having the entrepreneurs filling up form with their handwritings and issue “May Rai Card” for community liquor entrepreneurs for making excise tax payment.
The human resource section is supported by managing system development team of Excise Office which sets up consultants to advice the organization’s internal and external problems’ analysis. Utmost, personnel in every level of Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai Branch, participates in the project from setting up QCC team to analyze the causes of problems, location renovation, facilities improvements, service process adjustments along with process conclusion and following up.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Project‘s sustainability
The Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai Branch, has continuously started vary projects by established a vision which is harmoniously to the objective of the organization. Since 2009, the efficient service for customers has been developed and improved by organization analysis in order to direct the “FIRST” strategy and project plans for supporting the continuously change in every dimension, in addition, following up the analyzed and evaluated results of customers who will certainly be gain and loss in the service satisfaction. The results are value to the Office as they will be implied in the managing plan for service process improvements to reach customers’ need and expectation in the future.
Project‘s broadcast and result extension
The creation of the organization’s service standard are divided into 4 parts; consisted of service process/procedure standard, facility standard, service agent standard and agent dressing standard which lead to service standard allocation of the Excise Office with 4-standard evaluation criteria and as the standard of every service excise Office all over the country. Each Office will apply these standards to meet their customers’ satisfactions and create good image of excise Office which is conform to new dimension of excise Office service policy. At present, the excise Office provides “Excise Office Service Standard Handout” and broadcasts to every excise Office and strictly conducted in 2012, to evaluate and follow up every regional excise Office in order to set up the organization development plan of service standard.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
From organization development to an “Impressive Service Office” by integrating service as One Stop Service, the Information technology is brought up to take an action to lessen steps and time spending in service process. Also, additional service channel for license renewal request via post mail and internet access via e-service along with Office renovation and sufficient improved facilities for customers which is useful to customers in ways of convenience, fastness, time saving and travel expense. Lessen difficulty in filling up forms, waiting time to process the request, the injustice in reaching state’s service due to less educated and language difference of people in a far distance.
Personnel has acquisition of knowledge and analysis to search for problem solving procedure to enhance work efficiency, since service steps and time are lessen, there is more time to improve other sector management and create new projects for organization. Moreover, the excise tax collection will achieve target because the use of One Stop Service that need less service administrators.
These benefits can also be measured from customer satisfaction survey which is increased from 75% to 85% in 2011 and 95% in 2012. The state’s income is increased from excise tax collection in 2011 with amount of 141,051,700 baht which is 54,773,300 baht higher than the expected target 63.48% and numbers of customers is increased 5.85%. The less of steps and time waiting spending, and the license renewal request service via post mail and e-service has helped customers to save their travel expenses approximately 200 baht per person and spend less time in travelling approximately 1 hour per person. If these savings are converted into value, the amount would be 1,800,000 baht which can be used to urge the economy via people expenses.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Excise Office of Chiang Mai, Muang Chiang Mai branch
Institution Type:   Government Department  
Contact Person:   Naiyana Pisuthirat
Title:   Director of Management System Development Group  
Telephone/ Fax:   02-6686428 ,02-2415600 - 10 ext. 51411, 51412
Institution's / Project's Website:  
E-mail:   esdg@excise.go.th  
Address:   1488 Nakornchaisee Rd. Dusit
Postal Code:   10300
City:   Bangkok
State/Province:   Bangkok
Country:   Thailand

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