At TLScontact, we are always looking to improve customer experience (CX) for visa applicants. That requires data, not intuition, to understand what drives customer satisfaction and identify the parts of the customer journey that need to be improved. Our Enterprise Feedback Management programme, run with our sister company TP Infinity, allows us to do just that. Through real-time data collected at key steps in the application process, it helps us to drive continuous improvement in our processes and in the service that we offer to our visa customers, both online and at our centres worldwide.
We first launched the Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) programme back in 2020, running a pilot at our centres in South Africa. Five years later, the programme is deployed across our worldwide operations, for several of our government clients.
Enterprise Feedback Management for real-time customer insights
Run with the support of TP Infinity, TP Group’s in-house CX consultancy, the EFM programme allows us to collect and analyse real-time data through short online surveys sent out to customers at specific stages in their application journey:
- After booking an online appointment
- When they purchase an additional service
- Once they have visited our visa application centre to carry out their biometric enrolment
- After passport return, at the end of the application process.
The proprietary methodology developed by TP Infinity connects this customer feedback to digital data points from multiple sources before passing them through our supervised natural language analytics engine. The result is a very complete dataset which we can then analyse to assess customer satisfaction and develop evidence-based action plans for service improvements.
Key priorities for visa applicants
Over the last five years, we have gathered 650,000 survey responses from applicants in 95 countries. The average response rate is 12%, a solid result in itself, and significantly higher than that after key touchpoints. In some locations, survey participation after visiting a visa application centre reaches as high as 25%, revealing a clear willingness among applicants to share their experience, particularly after in-person interactions.
In terms of overall satisfaction, between 60% and 80% of applicants give a score of 9 or 10 out of 10 for their experience—strong results that reflect both the quality of service provided and the high standards applicants expect during the visa process.
This engagement isn’t limited to just ticking boxes. A remarkable 69% of respondents provide meaningful open-ended feedback, with an average length of 18 words. These verbatim comments offer invaluable qualitative insights that go far beyond satisfaction scores.
According to our data, there are three key priorities for visa applicants:
Priority #1: Clear information and timelines
The main driver of customer satisfaction is discoverability and clarity of information. Customers want to understand quickly and easily what is required for their visa application and how long the process will take. Understandably, they expect to receive accurate information from our staff during their appointment, and in the documentation and signage that is put in place to guide them through the process. They are less concerned about the duration of their appointment than the actual processing time once their application has been submitted. Here, once again, the priority for customers is to receive the relevant information. Waiting for a decision to be made on their application does not necessarily impact customer satisfaction if the timeframe is broadly in line with the expectations set at the beginning of the process.
Priority #2: A user-friendly website
Our websites are the first touchpoint for applicants and, as such, play a crucial role in driving a positive customer experience. Based on our EFM surveys, applicants do not necessarily expect a fast and easy online journey. Making sure that a simple and intuitive online registration process is in place and putting the correct information at their fingertips can help set the tone for the rest of the visa process, ensuring a positive customer experience from the start.
Priority #3: A pleasant in-centre experience
The physical visit to the visa application centre remains a key moment in the applicant journey. Applicants highlight several factors that shape their satisfaction, including comfort (such as air conditioning and seating availability), waiting times, and overall convenience. But above all, they value courteous and respectful interactions with staff. Given the personal and often high-stakes nature of the visa process, these human touchpoints carry particular emotional weight and can leave a lasting impression.
Change management with Enterprise Feedback Management
Our EFM programme allows us to ‘take the pulse’ of customers in many of our locations and understand what drives satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the visa process. However, the programme is not just about measuring customer perceptions: we want to use these insights to drive meaningful change. Thanks to the real-time monitoring that we carry out via the platform, we can reach out very quickly to individual applicants who have raised a specific issue. In parallel, the detailed analysis that we carry out on the data collected through EFM allows us to take an ‘aggregate view’, helping us identify more general areas for improvement. The aim is to identify the root cause of any problem raised through EFM, which can then be addressed through appropriate action plans designed to drive process improvements. In this sense, EFM can be seen as a genuine change management programme, enabling us to collect real-time feedback to measure, manage, and transform the customer experience.
Article written by
Morgan Caujolle, Director of Cross Operations
Giovanni Satta, Vice President, Head of Customer and Employee Experience Team, TP Infinity