Questions/Answers

The Authority’s service environment had continuously depleted resources that were not upgraded and lacked a sustainable customer relationship mechanism to support the revenue administration initiatives rolled out.There were increasing workloads versus a minimal staff complement and an expansion of the Authority’s mandate leading to additional roles and responsibilities that were channeled to the front-line staff.There lacked an engaging cross-functional working relationship with the revenue departments. Customer experience was characterized as being dissatisfactory with increased complaints and prolonged delays in meeting the customers’ needs.This led to the need for an optimal approach that would guarantee transparency, convenience, ease of compliance, quick turn-around times and conclusive query resolution.Over the years, customer experience and expectations built a strong case for adopting the following reforms initiatives: Redesign of Service Delivery Model (RSDM),Implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) and Establishment of a stakeholder engagement framework. RSDM and implementation of a CRMS envisioned to streamline the service delivery channels and create a linkage between front and back-offices to enhance seamless service delivery thereby ensuring that the Authority sufficiently caters for the needs of taxpayers effectively and efficiently.In addition to providing an environment that will lead to continuous improvement, sustainable cross-functional approach and knowledge transfer that will enhance service provision and delivery.The Stakeholder Engagement framework was developed to facilitate a proactive,forward looking approach to stakeholders issues.This initiative presented a commitment by the Authority towards improvement of the quality of stakeholders’ engagement and provision of clarity on the scope with a view of establishing a single point of contact and facilitate a faster resolution of stakeholder concerns and information flow.

The Objectives of the initiatives are; improve customer satisfaction index; provide a platform for consistency in service delivery;provide a well-coordinated complaints management framework;improve efficiency in customer service delivery;expand the customer engagement channels including fostering collaborative partnerships with diverse stakeholders;enhance tax compliance through awareness programmes and facilitate cultural transformation driven improvement in service delivery in line with KRA’s objective of building trust through facilitation.In addition, the stakeholder engagement objectives are; build stakeholders’ trust, credibility and confidence in KRA and in tax policies, systems, decisions and processes; Develop new and strengthen existing partnerships with strategic partners and stakeholders in implementation of tax policies and processes; Increase stakeholder satisfaction through faster resolution of issues raised.These initiatives are therefore geared towards ensuring that service delivery is structured and customer perception is changed. Service touch points were disjointed and information was not flowing from one level to another, the service delivered was therefore disparate.The need for consistency and seamless service delivery arose in all points of contacts.In a bid to ensure inclusivity, the stakeholder engagement was key in building trustful relationships.

RSDM focuses on the four tenets i.e.People, Processes,Technology, and Institutional Culture.Under the People element,the RSDM seeks to reskill and upskill, retool and empower the front line staff to be able to achieve 70% first contact resolution of the queries and escalate the complex or technical queries to the back-office using a predefined structure.On the process element, the escalation mechanism and complaints management framework are aligned to the virtual office structure which maps the employees (both front and back).On the Technology front, an elaborate implementation of two systems to manage the customer interactions have been implemented thereby introducing the Contact Centre Management System (CCMS) and the Customer Relationship Management Solution (CRMS) into the Authority’s service environment.On Culture, KRA has embarked on rigorous Transformation programs that cut across all departments and functional units.These programs aim at on-boarding all employees to embrace the new direction on service delivery.The SE has strengthened participation, decision making and consultation with external stakeholders. This has enhanced end-to-end communication, and strengthened relations. Additionally, this has spurred interest other public institutions to re-engineer their business models to include people, technology and processes in an effort to enhance their service delivery

RSDM and CRM have provided a platform through which customers receive an end to end resolution on issues raised. The RSDM has also provided a one stop shop where services are available under one roof. CRM has drastically reduced the cost of service provision. SE has enhanced the taxpayers’ access to information through participatory and consultative decision making involving structured service awareness programs such as stakeholder briefing forums and events, tax round tables, technical meetings. The initiative has provided a platform whereby taxpayers matters’ are collated and are incorporated into the business units for policy formulation, review and technical support particularly for both individuals and corporates. The Authority allows open dialogue with the general public through the various channels of communication e.g social media, walk-ins in service centres, outreach programs (Huduma mashinani) and focus group discussions. In ensuring a collaborative approach, other government agencies and partners have offered support and created the need for re-engineering their processes and procedures e.g. Communications Authority, Ken-Invest among others, to be in tandem with the international best practice.

These initiatives have addressed high cost of public service delivery and access to services by customers had led to exclusion of significant section of the population. Previously, service delivery channels and processes adopted by the Authority did not adequately support the time-cost value of doing business for both KRA and its customers. The experience for taxpayers was that delivery of services was rigorous, time consuming, delayed turn-around-times with some processes manifesting duplication of roles. The taxpayers’ were forced to queue for long hours for services coupled with a lot of paper work as most processes were manual. Ultimately, KRA was unable to meet revenue targets as many customers remained non-compliant due to high costs involved. These initiatives have created platforms for seamless service delivery thereby ensuring that the Authority sufficiently caters for the needs of customers. This led the Authority to adopt a new strategic direction that emphasizes on the delivery of high quality customer services to achieve customer satisfaction levels in line with the best practice including uptake of reform initiatives.

These initiatives have led to increased revenue streams which has led to improvement in the country’s GDP and gross per capita thereby impacting positively on the social-economic status of the citizens. In line with SDG goal no. 8 on “Promoting sustained inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employed and decent work for all”. These initiatives have contributed to the improvement in ease of paying taxes indicator from position 125 to 92. The Customer Engagement Model has improved the taxpayer’s perception on KRA and created an avenue of building and personalizing the interaction between taxpayers and the Authority. KRA has continuously offered support to the vulnerable by putting up learning facilities in schools, contributing in upgrading the health facilities in all referral hospitals across the country including but not limited to the well being of it’s staff. The rigorous tax education programme has improved knowledge among the citizens on taxation issues (tax education and civic engagement).

Over the years, Kenyan Government institutions did not underscore the importance of reaching out to the citizens in abid to facilitate them to obtain the necessary services within the shortest possible time. Instead the business environment involved providing services with minimal assistance from the body offering that service. The Authority for example, focused more on enforcement measures rather than creating a facilitative environment towards service delivery. With this realization, the Authority’s fifth and sixth corporate plans changed focus to become more service oriented and adopted a facilitative approach to delivering professional and efficient services. The Authority therefore embarked on a journey of not only transforming it’s transactional or back-end systems but also reforming the front line services. It became apparent that there was need to interface between the Authority and its’ customers without which service delivery would remain dismal. To this endeavour, the Authority embarked on the redesigning the service delivery model focusing on the four tenets earlier mentioned above. In this regard, automation & integration of both the front-line and back- office functions commenced.

The initiative is an adaptation from the private sector, other international organizations and Revenue Bodies. KRA is the first Kenyan government institution to automate critical services offered to the public. The Authority has progressively rolled out its’ Transformation Agenda anchored on people, processes and technology for enhanced service delivery. The transformation Agenda is geared towards People, Service Delivery, Intelligence Driven Tax Compliance and Trade Facilitation, Data Governance and information management and Legal framework. The changing business environment and evolving customer’s needs and preferences necessitated the change and alignment of KRA’s processes & service delivery to match international best practice. This is against a backdrop of benchmarks with the international organizations and private sector which have successfully changed their service delivery models.

The Authority has invested a substantial amount of money in on-boarding specialized skills and the necessary equipment and tools necessary for these initiatives. Product consultants have been contracted to work with the various business units to ensure delivery of customized solutions so as to realize these initiatives. This involved re-organization of human resources, structural alignments so as to support the new direction that KRA was undertaking. Additional human resources were recruited to fill in the skills gaps while existing staff were re-skilled and re-tooled thereby empowering them to drive the initiatives. New tools and equipment were also acquired to aid in implementation. These tools included computers, workspace, desks and refurbishment of the work environment.

Yes

Re-organization of human resources has been finalised across the country and the processes and procedures have been replicated across the seven KRA regions in an effort to enhance service delivery. In addition, management of the customer service delivery has been centralized such that they have sight of how service is delivered across board. The implementation of the CRM is phased and has been rolled out to one touch-point i.e. Contact Centre. The CRM has incorporated various channels of communication such as Email, Voice, Social Media, Web chat, SMS. RSDM is being rolled-out country wide while the CRM, which goes along way in sustaining RSDM will be rolled out to the technical experts across the country. These initiatives have inspired interest in other public and private institutions such as Kenya Airways, Equity Bank, National Hospital Insurance Fund, Communications Authority and Huduma Centre who have either benchmarked or expressed interest in benchmarking with the Authority in their bid to implement the same innovation. On the people front, the initiative reengineer the business processes such as the escalation mechanism and complaints management framework by aligning them to the virtual office. This has enhanced the taxpayer experience by providing a 360 degree view of the Customer.

These initiatives are sustainable. They support the go-green initiative by encouraging paperless interactions between the Authority and the Customers. In addition, it supports a close collaboration with all stakeholders to foster a deeper relationship with them and create a friendly environment of doing business. Moreover these initiatives have considerably reduced the cost of service delivery to the Authority and cost of accessing services for the customer. To ensure business continuity, the Authority has identified possible potential financial, social and environmental risks and mitigation measures have been put in place. Risk registers have been developed and are regularly updated and monitored. Additionally, staff are continuously skilled and upskilled on the new products/services and system upgrades. Scheduled system upgrades have been planned to incorporate any new or emerging trends in the technological advancement in addition to the changing preferences of the customer. There is in place a stakeholder engagement plan to ensure continuous interaction with customers.

Yes, these initiatives are sustainable over a long period of time considering a number of improvements and upgrades that have been planned and will continue to be carried out from time to time. There is also a roadmap for continuous benchmarking with the international best practice. An elaborate monitoring and evaluation framework has been developed to ensure continuous monitoring of these initiatives so as to allow corrective action to be taken when necessary. The initiatives took into account any future expansion requirements and they are easily adaptable to new changes. Thorough quality assurances and testing were done on these initiatives to ensure their stability over a period of time. Resource planning and management was taken into consideration prior to roll-out. Customers will always have a need for accessible services, and the sustainability of this is under review in the channel management strategy.

Yes

These initiatives are constantly evaluated using internal monitoring and evaluation tools such as logframe and satisfaction surveys which ensures sustainability, helps to improve performance and achieve results. Its goal is to improve current and future management of outputs, outcomes and impact. Additionally, through the Transformation Leadership Office and Internal Audit office, regular checks are conducted to ensure compliance with the stipulated standards. The Customer Relationship Management Solution is evaluated by the Transformation Leadership Office who monitor the progress and uptake of the solution. Information Technology Department performs a rigorous quality analysis of the solution whereby test cases are developed in line with the business requirements and ensures that the solution adheres to the set standards and policy guidelines. Further, the Internal Audit office monitors funds utilization against the budget and the business requirements. The service delivery assessment and performance measurements are regularly done by the Service Quality team who carry out mystery shops for quality checks and undertake Customer Satisfaction Surveys to monitor progress or improvements in customer service delivery in each point of contact.

On the service delivery front, the elements evaluated were uptake, roll-out time frame and Customer Satisfaction Levels against the baseline. It was established that the Customer Satisfaction Index improved by 6.9 points from 65% to 71.9%. The evaluation undertaken for the Customer Relationship Management solution assessed the quality, functionality, associated risks, usability, uptake, delivery time-frame and Cost. The initiative passed this evaluation and was declared fit for purpose. The stakeholder engagement evaluation is done using a Logframe and is continuous. The impact of which has resulted in increased engagements across the available communication channels, the taxpayers are more responsive to their obligations hence improvement in voluntary compliance. The Net Promoter Score has considerably improved from -22.6 to +29.

Various indicators were used such as the input indicators measuring funding, human capacity, infrastructural readiness, and partnerships. Process Indicators were used for the evaluation such as milestones and deliverables. Outcome indicators were also employed such as Customer Satisfaction Index and Net Promoter Score. These initiatives were evaluated against utilization of funds, and it was established they were delivered within budget. Staff productivity was measured in terms of turnaround times, occupancy levels, adherence to schedule and First Contact Resolution. Infrastructure was measured in terms of its’ readiness to support and sustain the implementation of the initiative. The partnerships created were measured in terms of Memorandum of Understanding signed with the partners and cordial working relationships developed and sustained, enhanced communication between the Authority and its’ stakeholders. The process indicators used were milestones based, the initiatives implemented all the required milestones within the stipulated timelines. Impact Analysis is conducted periodically to ascertain the effectiveness of the programs to the stakeholders & the Authority.

Stakeholders play a significant role in setting up priorities and objectives that are fundamental to KRA’s business operations.Stakeholders vary in their impact, significance, interest and relevance to business. KRA’s approach to stakeholder engagement is designed to support integration of stakeholder’s input into KRA’s business processes and day-to-day operations.This is embedded in the KRA’s 6th Corporate Plan across its entire spectra of tax processes and procedures. The engagement model aims at understanding stakeholders and their needs, fostering collaboration and purposeful engagement, strengthening partnership through consistent approach and performance measurement.This approach is anchored in Kenya’s Vision 2030 Development goals. The knowledge and information acquired through stakeholder engagement is invaluable in an increasingly complex taxation environment where authorities deal with many different relationships that all potentially impact on revenue collection.In redesigning service delivery model, the Authority engaged both internal and external stakeholders. The external stakeholders included Government Partners, Business Membership Organizations, Civil Society, Professional Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and the general public. Through inclusion of the stakeholders,the Authority gathered useful feedback that informed the initiation of Redesign Service Delivery Model (RSDM).Part of the feedback involved management of complaints and the need to streamline business processes as informed by the various customer journey maps undertaken. Engagements were at different levels and platforms including technical working groups whose focus was mainly on operations issue, Commissioners level, engagement involved various departments within the Authority engaging with external stakeholder at Commissioners’ level and finally strategic level with business leaders, government and policy makers engaging with the Commissioner General.

Some of the key lessons learnt are: · A well-defined scope of engagement should be the basis upon which the initiatives are conceived and maintained throughout the life of the initiative. · Involvement and participation of all stakeholders in all stages of implementation to ensure buy-in · A realistic work plan and proper sequencing of work is key to achievement of milestones within the stipulated timelines. · Market research and feasibility study should be done prior to project start-up and should continuously be carried to inform improvements. · There is need to have proper documentation and business requirements before embarking on developing any initiative or conducting any improvements. · There is need for conclusive resolution of any outstanding issue · Change management is as important as the implementation of the initiative The views to further improve the initiative. · Streamlining of the business processes to be in-line with the overall strategic direction. · Alignment of the Authority’s interest and that of the stakeholders · Entrench service culture within the organization. · Implementation and roll-out of Customer Relationship Management System (CRMS) enterprise wide.