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Researcher (Vendor) Aging Reports Are We Measuring Court Research or Email Response Time?
Are We Measuring Court Research or Email Response Time?
Having spent decades in the background screening industry, I have watched many operational procedures become so commonplace that few people stop to ask where they came from or whether they still make sense.
One example is the constant stream of aging reports, status requests, and "take action" notices sent to vendors.
The theory is straightforward. A search is submitted. If it remains open, reminders are sent. The vendor is expected to provide an update. Accountability is maintained.
On paper, that sounds reasonable.
But I sometimes wonder whether the industry has reached a point where we are measuring the ability to answer emails rather than the ability to retrieve records.
Consider a typical international court search.
The request is received.
The search is entered.
The jurisdiction is identified.
The work is assigned.
The court is contacted.
At that point, the next step often depends on someone outside the vendor's control: a court clerk, a records office, a government agency, or a local researcher.
Yet many vendors begin receiving follow-up requests almost immediately.
Not after thirty days.
Not after two weeks.
Sometimes the very next day.
"Please take action."
What action?
The court has already been contacted.
The request has already been submitted.
The vendor is already waiting for a response.
The result is often another email explaining that the search remains in progress.
Then another.
Then another.
The irony is that I cannot simply dismiss these requests as unnecessary.
Over the years, I have lost customers because I did not respond quickly enough.
Not because I searched the wrong court.
Not because I failed to locate a record.
Not because my report was inaccurate.
I lost business because I did not answer an email quickly enough.
That reality tells us something important.
The procedure survives because customers value responsiveness.
Many CRAs view rapid communication as evidence that a vendor is actively managing a search. And to be fair, there is some truth in that.
Communication matters.
Customers deserve updates.
But I believe there is a legitimate question worth asking:
Has the industry reached a point where communication about the work receives more attention than the work itself?
If we were designing a background screening operation from scratch today, would we create a process that requires vendors to repeatedly confirm that a search is still in progress while waiting for a court to respond?
Or would we focus on meaningful milestone updates, such as:
• Search received and assigned
• Court contacted
• Additional information required
• ETA changed
• Result received
The people who originally created many of these procedures are largely gone from the industry. Companies have been sold. Executives have retired. Operations teams have changed.
Yet the procedures remain.
Perhaps they remain because they are effective.
Or perhaps they remain because they have always existed.
I am genuinely interested in hearing from both CRAs and vendors.
Are daily status requests improving turnaround times?
Or are we simply measuring responsiveness because responsiveness is easier to measure than actual record retrieval?
What would you change if you were designing the process today?
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