Applying for visas can be a pain point for many travelers. To address it, Sherpa came up with a solution for travel providers that guides their customers through the whole process. Given the fact that the success metric for such a service is application approval rates by governments, effective identity document processing was key.

The challenge was that the users submitted documents and headshots of varying quality and formats. This naturally created an extra burden for the support team, who had to review and verify everything and contact the user if there were any issues. The company was looking for an effective way to ensure that the uploaded assets were accurate and of high quality to be submitted to the immigration authorities. Also, they wanted to cut the need for manual interventions during this process to the minimum. 

One of the reasons why Sherpa chose Regula Document SDK to solve this challenge was its flexible cross-platform capabilities. The fact that most solutions on the market are mobile-only was an unexpected roadblock. This might have jeopardized the whole process, since being able to deliver on any platform, including desktops, was crucial.

The final Regula-based solution was a web API integration, resulting in a microservice that automated data entry, identity document verification, and headshot quality assessment. It is now used during the travelers’ application process to analyze the uploads and provide feedback about the quality and eligibility of the documents for applying for a travel visa.

Thanks to the fact that the new solution provides feedback to users, in most cases, they now upload the correct documents on their initial attempt. As a result, orders are processed more rapidly, and the customer service team no longer needs to contact travelers for additional document submissions. This has reduced traveler frustration caused by repeated requests for document resubmission. 

The increased automation success rate helped Sherpa cut operational costs by 15% per year. This allowed them to scale volume without hiring additional staff, and also freed up the operations team to focus on more strategic items.

“Without Regula, we’d likely have to grow our team size in order to keep up with scaling volume while building an in-house solution. This would create a large amount of overhead in addition to being expensive and error-prone. The cost savings by not having to go this route can be looked at as a larger team with 2-3 people needed to manage them, available 7 days a week. This easily pushes into low- to mid-six figures of additional costs,” says Andrew Dias, COO at Sherpa.

“We’re thrilled to have partnered with Sherpa, as their commitment to enhancing the travel experience aligns perfectly with our vision at Regula. Not only has Sherpa achieved remarkable cost savings, but also revolutionized how travelers navigate the often cumbersome visa application process. This success story underscores the power of technology to simplify and improve the lives of people worldwide,” says Ihar Kliashchou, Chief Technology Officer at Regula.