Service NSW offers real-time queue updates

Customers planning to visit a Service NSW office can now receive real-time updates on their estimated waiting time via a smartphone, allowing them to choose the most convenient time to call in.

The app in action

Speaking at CeBIT 2015, NSW Finance Minister Dominic Perrottet referred to the service as the “Netflix version of government ... smart services when you want them, when you want them and how you want them”.

The wait times can be accessed through the Service NSW mobile app and through the Service NSW website.

Android users can download the updated app from today, while Apple users will be able to download the update in the coming weeks.    

Times will be updated every two minutes, based on the average time it takes visitors in store to proceed from taking a ticket to reaching the counter at any given hour of the day. The app will display the data for more than 30 Service NSW centres operating across the state. 

The government hopes the information will nudge users to avoid peak times like weekday lunches and the lead-up to holiday periods.

Perottet said the new function was an example of the steps the NSW government was taking to meet the expectations of a rising millennial workforce. 

“They are a generation unlike any other. By 2025, just ten years from now, they will make up almost 75 percent of the workforce, a shift that will have profound impact on government," he said. 

Service NSW has already made some headway towards streamlining the government's customer service network, which just a few years ago consisted of 100 call centres, 400 shopfronts, 1000 website and 8000 customer service lines.

"With the introduction of Service NSW we are able to handle 800 transactions across 16 agencies and put them in one place," Perottet said.