FG to address poor service through call centres

[Punch]

The Federal Government has indicated its intention to use call centres to address the problem of poor service delivery in the public service.

Senior Special Assistant to the President and National Coordinator of Service Compact with Nigerian, Mr. Sylbriks Obriki, gave this indication at a ceremony marking the inauguration of Association of Call Centre Operators of Nigeria in Abuja.

Obriki said workers should put themselves in the place of service users, adding that call centres would help public agencies to appreciate the difficulties their customers were going through in their quest for efficient service delivery.

Obriki said, "One very important thing SERVICOM is proposing to do is the creation of call centres to enable customers ventilate their grievances arising from failures in service delivery and to seek redress.

"The call centres, if eventually created, will serve as speedy complaint redress mechanism customers in need."

He also said, "The formal launch of ACCON is therefore one among many programmes that will advance the image of this country to the front burner of the nation's service delivery question.

"The inauguration of ACCON is not only apt but well-timed and crucial as we chart the nation out of the way of the inefficiencies in service delivery as stakeholders in the business of governance."

Tracing the history of poor service delivery, Obriki said it was in 2004 that the Federal Government decided to begin the crusade for improving standard of service delivery given identified visible nationwide service failure.

He said, "It was obvious that government services were not serving the people any longer. One could practically sense the inaccessibility, poor quality and the level of indifference of government services in relation to the needs of the citizenry.

"The manifest countrywide service collapse in the country, therefore, necessitated a Presidential Retreat, which led to a study that eventually recommended the establishment of SERVICOM as an interventionist agency of government."

He described effective service delivery as the main conveyor of the social contract government had with the people, adding that call centres had a central role to play in improving the system.

ACCON is a non-profit organisation registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission and primarily established to see to the growth and development of the contact centre operations within the Nigerian business environment.

The association is being pioneered by three notable companies in the contact centre industry namely: Interra Networks Limited, Customer Contact Solutions Nigeria Limited, and Contact Solutions Limited.

 



The Punch