2020 Year in Review: 10 Agency Success Stories
2020 Year in Review: 10 Agency Success Stories
1. All AZ ROC Services Are Now Available Online
As of October 2020, all AZ ROC services are now available online! This saves time for our customers either by saving them a trip down to one of our offices or the several days it can take for documents to arrive in the mail.
2. Contractor Forums Gone Digital
In 2020 the Agency held 17 contractor forums: 6 Licensed Contractor Forums, 5 New Licensee Forums, 2 Association Forums, and 4 Applicant Education Seminars. Despite having one less forum than in 2019, the Agency saw a 170% increase in forum attendance from the previous year.
In the past, the Agency held contractor forums throughout the state and traveled outside the Phoenix Metro area for forums on a bimonthly basis. Moving the forums online made them more efficient and accessible to a wider number of participants. Of note, after the pandemic the agency looks forward to offering both virtual forums and a return to in-person meetings.
3. Licensing Application Backlog
AZ ROC's Licensing Department normally receives approximately 325 license applications per month.
Executive Order 2020-17 temporarily delayed the testing requirements for new applicants due to closures and limits related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to the department receiving an average of 502 applications per month between April through July 2020.
This increase in the number of applications and the required follow-up to ensure testing requirements were later met, created a backlog of applications. At the highest point the backlog totaled 322 applications.
As of Dec. 3, 2020, the backlog of applications were processed and the Agency's Licensing Department began again reviewing applications they received the day prior.
4. Lowe's Brochure Program
In 2020 AZ ROC partnered with Lowe's to get Agency brochures in all 32 Arizona locations.
Previously in 2019, AZ ROC partnered with The Home Depot to get Agency brochures in all 56 Arizona locations.
5. Interagency Cooperation
In December 2020, the Agency's IT Department completed the development of an Application Program Interface (API) with the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) to facilitate transferring hearing files from our system to theirs.
This new tool streamlines a process that was previously manual and done primarily over email. It also allows the Agency to share a larger number of different file types with OAH rather than just text file sharing.
6. Compliance Department Communication
As of September 2020, AZ ROC Investigators are calling 100 percent of licensed complaint respondents, whereas many were previously only notified about complaints by mail.
The goal of the complaint process is to reach a resolution between the contractor and the homeowner. The participation of both parties is very important to the process, and this effort will hopefully increase the number of contractors attending jobsite inspections.
7. Public Records Processing Time
As of November 2020, public records requests are down to an average of 6 days to process. In 2019 the average processing time was 39 days.
This success is the result of both the Agency's Legal Department's efforts to process requests faster and the 2019 implementation of an online public records request portal.
8. Improving Communication with Applicants
In September 2020, the Agency held it's first Applicant Education Seminar, a forum designed to walk new license applicants through the application process to avoid mistakes and returned applications.
Data is still being collected to see if these seminars decrease the number of returned applications for mistakes or missing information.
The Agency has received a number of positive comments regarding the helpfulness of these presentations.
9. Decreased the Average Number of Days to Issue a License
In 2019, the Agency issued 4,144 licenses and it took an average of 19.5 days to process the applications.
In 2020, even with the logistical challenges of the global pandemic, the Agency issued 4,522 licenses at an average of 15.6 days from intake to issuance - nearly a 10 percent increase in applications and a 20 percent decrease in the time to issue.
10. New Document Managment System
The Agency implemented a new document management system to keep our electronic documents secure and organized for faster processing. This new system also allows us to quickly share electronic documents with customers and partners as needed and enabled staff to continue to seamlessly work from home during much of COVID-19's spread.
We Are Here For You
2020 presented some unprecedented challenges.
AZ ROC is always working to reduce burdens and increase access to our services.
If you have questions or concerns give the Agency a call at 1-877-692-9762 or attend one of the monthly Licensed Contractor Forums.