Counter and mail-room observation
Intake Desk Review
We sit at the counter or mail tray and watch how packs are opened, numbered, and passed to the next pair of hands.
- Form
- Counter and mail-room observation
- Span
- One to two weeks, including write-up
- Where
- The intake point of the client office
- Charge
- Daily visit rate, usually two to four days
An Intake Desk Review is for offices where the trouble starts before assessment ever begins. If lodgement hours create a Monday mountain, if envelopes sit unopened because the numbering stamp is on another floor, or if completeness is checked by whoever happens to be nearest the slit in the counter, this is the narrower piece of work.
We take a chair beside the person who greets the public or who slits the post. We count how many packs arrive in an hour, how many are turned away for a missing page, and how the accepted ones are carried to the next tray. The note we leave is a description of that first hour in the life of an application, with the bottlenecks named as furniture and habits rather than as abstractions.
The review does not follow the file into assessment. If the map needs that later stretch, commission the Application Journey Audit after the intake is understood.