Time, Talent and Tangible Resources

Time, Talent and Tangible Resources

It is difficult to believe that it is already time to write my fourth and final column as president of NCSEA for the Child Support Quarterly. Although this is my last major writing assignment, many opportunities to be of service to the child support community remain available between now and August 2, 2000, and I assure you that I will avail myself of as many of them as are humanly possible. I decided to close out my series of these columns by sharing with the broader NCSEA family my personal view of what our beloved child support program should look like in the future.

I have long held that the child support program needs to look much more like the backroom of MasterCard, Visa or American Express rather than a cash assistance program. There is little question that the child support program was the cash assistance program designed to provide comprehensive reinforcements to families in need. Child support, as well as the other programs in our income assistance system, has a unique contribution to make to family well-being. The question is: how can child support best make that contribution.

Whatever else may be added to or subtracted from it, I believe, child support's core functions will always include establishing paternities, locating noncustodial parents obligated to pay child support, establishing support orders, enforcing those orders, collecting and distributing child support payments. I would suggest the customer service centers for this country's credit card industry hold some valuable and transferable approaches that can be used to improve not only the delivery of child support services, but also the public perception of the child support community.

Just think about it. When you call your credit card company about a recent purchase or their failure to properly credit a recent payment, you don't even know, let alone have a long-standing relationship with, the customer service representative. They do not have to "case manage" you in order to provide you with value added service. You simply make the call, state your problem and get the information you need. The customer service representative has the appropriate charge investigated (with the understanding that the charge will be removed from your account in the interim), sends you a letter verifying the nature of this interaction and you move on a happy camper - at least for the moment. That is the level of service that the American public has come to expect in their daily business transactions, and that is the level service that the public anticipates from the child support program.

Returning to the credit card company representative, let's remember that he or she is the beneficiary of various front-end sorting mechanisms, service parameters and predetermined, accepted definitions of due diligence that are not available to most child support workers. Long before you talk to that helpful credit card company representative, someone has made the determination as to whether or not you are a green card member, gold card member or platinum card member. Each level of membership has rewards, opportunities and a schematic to determine how the company will proceed should you become delinquent in your payments.

With each level of membership cardholders have the opportunity to take advantage of various promotional offers. Whether it's an offer for legal services anywhere on the plant, or a reduction in rates as you travel for business or pleasure, under some specific set of circumstances - and usually for a nominal fee, billed directly to your credit card for your convenience - the companies can give you what you want.