New hi-tech call centre on way

[abdulla]

Originally Posted by Gulf Daily News

A NEW round-the-clock, hi-tech call centre for water and electricity customers will be opened by the end of the year, it was announced yesterday.
It will be supervised by the Ministry of Electricity and Water, but run by private company Mena Business Services (MBS), under an initial five-year contract.
The ministry has appointed MBS and will pay BD320,000 a year for the call centre, which will be located in Manama.
It aims to provide better service for all ministry customers and ensure proper registration of complaints and handling of customer service issues.
"We will provide a professionally-managed call centre in addition to outsourcing services," said chairman and chief executive officer Ali Al Hashimi.
"A total of 35 Bahraini call agents are being trained for of eight months, to learn how to handle customer complaints and services.
"We will also carry out a survey asking customers about the services provided by the centre, to see the feedback and help us develop and improve the services."
A hotline will be launched soon to receive complaints and handle customer service needs, said ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Administrative and Financial Affairs Shaikh Nawaf bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa.
"We will improve the key performance indicators and we will have a unit in the ministry which will supervise the centre," he said.
"Call centre now is being electronically connected to the ministry's computer system and training for the agents is in progress."
Shaikh Nawaf said that the employees would be working in shifts, to receive calls round-the-clock.
"A customer will only have to wait 20 seconds to reach a call agent, even when the centre is busy," he said.
"The customer can convey the problem and the agent will enter the data electronically and send it to the ministry's maintenance distribution unit, which will receive the problem and send a repairman to the site."
Shaikh Nawaf said only one person from the household should call to report complaints, rather than several people making calls to different agents.
The call agents will answer any kind of calls, whether it is a complaint, inquiry or a service request.
This means, customers only have to dial one number, to reach any service they want.
Customers will also be able to send their complaints or inquiries and services via fax, email or via website chat facilities.
"Work on the centre has begun and is being established in phases and should be completed by the end of the year," said Shaikh Nawaf.
"The services will also include service-related inquiries, account information, modification of certain customer data, billing and reading enquiries, inspection appointments, and bill payments and receiving and registering meter readings."
He said that the new call centre would provide an interface between the ministry and the customers.
"The call centre will serve individual customers as well as organisations," said Shaikh Nawaf.
He said the ministry would continually review the type and quality of services provided by the call centre, to improve customer satisfaction.

source: Gulf Daily News

[Ahmed Alzayani]

What they basically saying are: ok we know that our service is not smooth and you will experience blackout every now and then, but don’t worry in 20 sec you will be connected to someone so we can fix your problem.

More money and resources should be located to fix the infrastructure instead of using it to receive endless compliances form angry customers. I mean electricity and water is important infrastructure and should be running 24/7, and any interruption in the service, should be the exception not the norm.

[MichelleB]

Originally Posted by Ahmed Alzayani

What they basically saying are: ok we know that our service is not smooth and you will experience blackout every now and then, but don’t worry in 20 sec you will be connected to someone so we can fix your problem.

More money and resources should be located to fix the infrastructure instead of using it to receive endless compliances form angry customers. I mean electricity and water is important infrastructure and should be running 24/7, and any interruption in the service, should be the exception not the norm.

I totally agree with you, but at the end of the day at least they are trying to make some kind of effort to improve the system and hopefully this is the first step in improving the service as a whole.