Your thoughts on Morpho?

[Texsquatch]

Today, the Statesman had an article about security companies & such filing complaints about the states requirement to use Morpho. I'd post a link, but a membership to statesman.com is required to read the full article.

I can't complain too much about Morpho, but based on my experience, I can see there is plenty of aspects that could cause complaints. I won't even mention the website here, which had it's own issues, but I'm more focused on the customer service and insane rules.

-I scheduled my appointment for 9:00am, my wife for 9:30 - why 30 min in between? The don't take walk-ins, so why stagger appt's every 30min?
-I was running late. While driving (rushing), my wife was on hold for 20 minutes before anyone answered, and assured her it was fine if we were 10 min late - so far so good.
-I circle the parking lot in Round Rock before I realized where the tiny office was. No name outside, only a door with multiple "suite" numbers.
-We walk in, and wait for the young girl to stop playing with her phone to acknowlede us, she said, "do you have an appointment?" I repeated mine was 9, and my wife at 9:30. It was 9:08. In the meantime, a young lady with 3 young kids walks in, said she could not remember if her appointment was today, or tomorrow, the clerk told her have a seat.
-The clerk then calls my wife up first, takes her prints, calls the lady up, tells her that her appt was tomorrow and she would have to come back.
-She then calls me up, and my prints are done by 9:33.
-The clerk was not a chipper person by any means, and pretty much said "drivers license?" and "check or money order" and that's it. No thank or your goodbye.
-Being the jerk I am, I say "Thanks for your patience waiting for us, have a nice day", at which she just kinda nodded her head, with her phone already back in her hand.
-Finally, we go to our car, and my wife and I just look at each other and laugh at how silly it was for her to turn the lady away, all the while, the lady is next to us, still buckling up her kids.
Why couldn't she squeeze her in? No one else came in. If the next appt wasn't until 10am, she had 27 minutes to take the ladies finger prints (which would take only 5 minutes max). I hope the young lady was not from out of town, as were where, because she has to load up the kids and make another trip.
I know it's not the clerks fault she showed up on the wrong day, but come on! What happened to common sense, and common curtesy?

[Texsquatch]

Here's a link & a portion of the article. Those that have access to statesman.com can read it in full.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/stat ... nt-/nZQS5/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

American-Statesman Staff

Private security guard companies lodged a public complaint Thursday about the Department of Public Safety’s outsourced system of electronically processing fingerprints for background checks for millions of Texas job applicants and public employees.

Appearing at a meeting of the Public Safety Commission, representatives of the industry said DPS’s exclusive contract with an international company, MorphoTrust, has resulted in inadequate service and long waits for fingerprints required to get a security guard job — a low-paying, high-turnover field.

[Hola Gato]

Monopolies, especially legislatively created artificial monopolies, usually have bad customer service.

[Warhorse545]

I had my prints taken on July 5th. In and out in less then 10 mins. Used Austin office 7901 Cameron Rd, Building 2, Suite 215. DPS accepted the prints and I have my CHL in hand. Check I wrote to them ( Morpho ) has yet to be cashed. So about and month and a half now and not cashed. That bugs the hell out of me. In and out and no pleasantries. I am perfectly fine with that, but I can see how that can be off putting. Me I have had my prints done many times for various reasons and just was annoyed I had to get them done again. I got them done, I got my license and I got a receipt for payment. Other then check not being cashed they did what I paid for. I took it as a get it done deal and they did just that. I scheduled online, showed up early and was in and out.

[Crossfire]

Today, the Statesman had an article about security companies & such filing complaints about the states requirement to use Morpho. I'd post a link, but a membership to statesman.com is required to read the full article.

I can't complain too much about Morpho, but based on my experience, I can see there is plenty of aspects that could cause complaints. I won't even mention the website here, which had it's own issues, but I'm more focused on the customer service and insane rules.

-I scheduled my appointment for 9:00am, my wife for 9:30 - why 30 min in between? The don't take walk-ins, so why stagger appt's every 30min?
-I was running late. While driving (rushing), my wife was on hold for 20 minutes before anyone answered, and assured her it was fine if we were 10 min late - so far so good.
-I circle the parking lot in Round Rock before I realized where the tiny office was. No name outside, only a door with multiple "suite" numbers.
-We walk in, and wait for the young girl to stop playing with her phone to acknowlede us, she said, "do you have an appointment?" I repeated mine was 9, and my wife at 9:30. It was 9:08. In the meantime, a young lady with 3 young kids walks in, said she could not remember if her appointment was today, or tomorrow, the clerk told her have a seat.
-The clerk then calls my wife up first, takes her prints, calls the lady up, tells her that her appt was tomorrow and she would have to come back.
-She then calls me up, and my prints are done by 9:33.
-The clerk was not a chipper person by any means, and pretty much said "drivers license?" and "check or money order" and that's it. No thank or your goodbye.
-Being the jerk I am, I say "Thanks for your patience waiting for us, have a nice day", at which she just kinda nodded her head, with her phone already back in her hand.
-Finally, we go to our car, and my wife and I just look at each other and laugh at how silly it was for her to turn the lady away, all the while, the lady is next to us, still buckling up her kids.
Why couldn't she squeeze her in? No one else came in. If the next appt wasn't until 10am, she had 27 minutes to take the ladies finger prints (which would take only 5 minutes max). I hope the young lady was not from out of town, as were where, because she has to load up the kids and make another trip.
I know it's not the clerks fault she showed up on the wrong day, but come on! What happened to common sense, and common curtesy?

Because we are partners with MorphoTrust, I will try to answer what I can.

First thing to know is, not all offices are alike. Some are company owned, and the techs there are hourly employees of MorphoTrust. Some, like us, are partners. Meaning this is OUR own business, and we are our OWN employees. We get paid a fee (small fee, really, really small) for every person we print.

Appointments, for us, are scheduled every 10 minutes. We were allowed 20 minutes between appointments when we were training, but now we take someone every 10 minutes. It could be that someone else had booked the appointment between you and your wife, and either did not show up, or was late. We have "no-shows" every day. We also have people who book several appointments for the same day, just in case they get busy and can't make one, then they have a backup. This takes appointments away from other people who need them, and also takes money out of our pockets. Again, if you don't show up, we don't get paid.


You can only be fingerprinted by appointment. We are not allowed to take walk-ins. (Yes, it annoys the bejeebers out of us too.) We get a download every morning of the records for all the appointments that day. If we don't have your record in our system, we can't fingerprint you. That is also why we cannot print you on a different day than your appointment. If you can't make it to your appointment, and call us, we can hold your record and print you the next day, but we cannot print you BEFORE we have received your record in our download. And yes, we will do our best to work you in the next day, but you might have to wait. Remember - we are booked from open to close, every 10 minutes.

We do our very best to be polite, courteous, and friendly to everyone who comes to our office. But, again, this is OUR business, and our reputation. This does not excuse rude behavior by other locations, but it might help you to understand it.

[Texsquatch]

Thanks for the additional information. I think all of us do something within our jobs that doesn't make sense, yet we're required to comply with the rules. I know it was my fault for being late, and I wouldn't have argued if I was told to come back the next day. And the young lady I mentioned was definitely no happy she had to come back, but totally aware it was her fault for getting the dates confused. However, I think if the clerk could provide a little more explantion as to why she couldn't do them early, or why late arrivals may not be accomodated, it would go a long way to prevent complaints.

The customer isn't always right, but sometimes gotta play the game and make them happy.