The provincial government has completed the installation of a customer care centre in partnership with leading ICT integrator Comparex Africa that is already reaping enhanced service levels and fault reporting efficiencies for taxpayers in the Northwest Province.
According to Josias Molele, Regional Executive: Provincial Government for Comparex Africa, the ICT integrator was brought in because of its history in effectively assisting government in realising service delivery.
"We have been involved from the beginning two years ago when we were brought in to totally re-engineer the Customer Care Centre and ensure the correct processes where in place to get their chosen Remedy package up and running.
The installation is now complete and they are reaping the benefits of the package including the tracking, re-routing and speedy resolution of calls from customers and staff."
He said the Customer Care Centre has increased service delivery by ensuring that queries from the public are channelled to the right people quickly, improving turnaround time and efficiently using human resources.
Molele said the Customer Care Centre is a vital tool enabling the government to realise the goals of Batho Pele, the service delivery flagship programme initiated by the Department of Public Service and Administration for Government.
He said service delivery has become a necessity for government under this initiative, designed to set service levels, increase access to services, ensure higher levels of courtesy, remedy failures and mistakes and give the best possible value for money.
"With the Customer Care Centre up and running fault reporting has been reduced and turnaround time is faster. The system has become transparent, accountable and increasingly more efficient for the end user."
The call centre has been implemented to service the IT department of the Northwest Province but Molele envisages the Customer Care Centre could be spread out across other departments in the region to boost service levels for them as well.
He says the challenge is to ensure skills are transferred to frontline service people in the region so the governments public face to the consumer will be sustainably efficient and add value to all the people involved, including government IT staff, other departments and the public.
Molele is enthusiastic about the benefits that could be realised if the Customer Care Centre model enjoyed by the Northwest Province could be rolled out across the country.
"We have proven that the concept can work in the Northwest, imagine the efficiency benefits for other provincial governments departments, and of course the taxpayer, if this transparent and efficient service delivery solution was used nationally"
He said that politicians, businesses, and government executives all around the world are focusing energy on developing innovative and cost-effective ways for government to serve its constituents.
Providing the customers of these systems with comprehensive solutions that work consistently across multiple touch points - including Web, Customer Care Center, kiosk, walk-up etc - will be the hallmark of the most successful government service solution moving forward into 2004.
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