With the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec’s (SAAQ) new online platform leading to more service headaches than reducing them, a union representing the insurer’s employees has stated that it warned managers that the SAAQclic service was not yet ready for launch.
Two weeks have passed since the launch of SAAQclic, and issues related to the online service have left SAAQ scrambling to help service customers.
Launched in late February, SAAQclic looks to allow users to perform transactions related to their driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations, submitting medical reports, and more. However, issues with the server and the site’s awkward interfaces led to a rocky start for the platform. Making matters more complicated was that before the platform’s launch, SAAQ shut down its systems for three weeks to make way for a transfer of some “10 billion pieces of data”. That shutdown led to a severe backlog of transactions left incomplete, and many have turned to SAAQ’s physical service centres in frustration.
"The system was shut down for three weeks. During these three weeks, there were 430,000 transactions not made. It was impossible to respond to that," Christian Daigle, president of the SFPQ union, told CTV News.
Daigle added that members of the union had cautioned SAAQ that the new system was potentially problematic, but the Crown corporation did not heed the warning. The union president also picked apart SAAQ’s stopgap measure of assigning an additional 150 staff across its service centres to better help customers.
"The training was last-minute training. Even right now, they said that 150 people will come and help,” the union president stated. “They’re training right now these people. I don’t even know if they were able to get 150 persons to respond positively.”
With long lines at SAAQ service centres, the Crown insurer has advised customers that those who have appointments should show up 15 to 20 minutes before their schedule. In addition to adding more staff to its service centres, SAAQ also announced that it will extend its operating hours for certain branches, and that some of its services would be offered by appointment on weekends.
"We hope that the measures we put in place … will reduce wait times for clients," said SAAQ vice president of strategic marketing Dave Leclerc.
CTV News reported that the backlog of transactions is expected to be sorted by late April.
