Summary:
- Sheffield’s registration team launched online booking for ceremonies in late November 2024, with a 90% channel switch from customers.
- At the same time, they launched DRO-enabled notices online with payments, showing a similar channel switch of 88%.
Sheffield’s Challenge:
As one of the biggest authorities in the Yorkshire and the Humber region and as the 4th highest for marriage ceremonies within their group (according to ONS data for 2021 and 2022), Sheffield’s registrars conduct thorough management of notices and ceremonies within their district every year.
But like many others, the team faced the operational hurdles of creating bookings through manual input when taken over the phone, via email, or in person.
This system was time-consuming, created the potential for errors, and created bottlenecks for both staff and those who were seeking to formalise their unions.
An example being even the opportunity to look for ceremony availability was limited to reaching out to the service themselves and waiting for a response during working hours.
The Solution:
In order to take the pressure off of the registration team and give customers greater accessibility to services, Sheffield’s Deputy Superintendent Registrar, John Albinson, pushed ahead the project to implement online booking for 40+ ceremony venues and across their notice-taking register offices.
Working alongside our projects team, we partnered to:
- Build DRO-enabled notice processes accessible for every nationality.
- Create a ceremony booking process that aligned with their venues and their relevant fees.
- Integrate payments to take fees upfront where applicable.
- Set up automatic communications for notices and ceremonies, including issue on specific due dates for things like outstanding balances.
The Results:
Since launching in November 2024, the impact on the service has been transformational, driving improvements in efficiency and customer satisfaction. Adoption of their new online booking processes by the public has shown:
- 90% of ceremony bookings since their launch are now completed online. 10% created via admin.
- 88% of notice of marriage and civil partnerships bookings since their launch are now completed online. 12% were created via admin.
Key Benefits:
- Increased Efficiency: Reduced manual input has freed up registrars to focus on other critical tasks, e.g. fewer queries about pricing and ceremony availability at specific venues.
- Enhanced Customer Experience: Couples could now complete more ceremony-related activities at their convenience, e.g. book notices and ceremonies and review pricing/availability.
- Improved Accuracy: Self service booking has automated data entry in Agenda, reducing the risk of input errors.
- Streamlined Operations: The online system has simplified the end-to-end ceremony process, with fewer payments needing to be taken at the time of the appointment in the case of notices, and automatic correspondence helping tackle otherwise manual follow up.
Special thanks to John Albinson and the team at Sheffield for working with us to produce this case study. We look forward to continuing our work with the team to continue supporting their service delivery to Sheffield residents.