MacDill ID card office adds new online service, reduces wait time

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Scott Warner
  • 6th Air Mobility Wing

The 6th Force Support Squadron’s military personnel flight (MPF) serves a large military population that includes active-duty service members, reservists, dependents, retirees and civilian contractors.

In an effort to eliminate wait times and increase customer satisfaction, the MPF unveiled a new online renewal process this month for dependent and retiree identification cards.

“Customer satisfaction is our first priority and we actively support our customer base,” said 2nd Lt. Ronald Donnell, the flight commander of the MPF assigned to the 6th FSS. “From our customer’s feedback, we saw a need to substantially reduce our waiting times in our facility.”

According to MacDill’s 2017 Economic Impact Statement, 95,238 people make up the base and surrounding area military population, but it doesn’t define how large the surrounding area is.

“Some of our customers travel more than 100 miles to get here,” said Donnell. “With how much time they spend on getting here, it is important for us to help them quickly.”

The MPF assists customers in many areas, but specializes in common access cards, dependent IDs, reserve IDs, retiree IDs and Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) updates.

“By submitting everything online, it allows us the ability to get the work done when our system is fully-functional and it gives the customer assurance that it can be picked up when it’s ready,” said Tech. Sgt. Bryan Karason, the customer support section chief assigned to the 6th FSS. “It’s a win for both parties.”

From August 1 to 28, the 6th FSS DEERS & ID Cards Office helped 3,986 customers. Of that total, 1,954 were dependents and retirees, which is the largest demographic that will benefit from the new online renewal process. 

“Normally, more than half of our customers come from off base,” said Karason.

Along with submitting paperwork electronically, the 6th FSS MPF also installed a green, yellow and red stoplight approach on their website for walk-in customers. The stoplight alerts potential customers in real time the status of the DEERS & ID Cards office’s internal system to make any ID cards.

“Before having the stoplight feature, people would call and walk-in not knowing if it was a good time to come by, but now, they will know the same time we do if we encounter an internal system problem,” said Karason.

The online renewal process and stoplight features are both innovative ways to disseminate information quickly to MPF’s customer base and MacDill AFB plans to be the first to utilize this new approach under Air Mobility Command.

“Once retirees and dependents start utilizing this new way of getting IDs, all they will have to do when they get here is three things,” said Karason. “Sign, laminate and go.”

According to Karason, the newer process shouldn’t take longer than three minutes and it is secure because it utilizes the U.S. Army’s Safe Access File Exchange (SAFE) for their website to transfer sensitive, personal identifiable information with password-protected encryption.

Based on early findings from other installations such as Travis AFB, submitting documentation remotely has reduced foot traffic by 15 percent.

"A 15 percent reduction in foot traffic means approximately 500 less appointments per month and 6,000 less per year,” said Karason. “That would give us more time to look into other ways on how to help our customer base.”

For more information, the 6th FSS MPF team can be reached by email at 6FSS.FSPS.Macdillonlinerenewal@us.af.mil or by visiting their website www.macdillfss.com/.