As part of its efforts to promote direct and effective communication with the public and to facilitate access to the various services offered to citizens, residents and government and private institutions across the country, the Public Works Authority launched on Sunday, 7 May, 2017, the new number “188” of Ashghal’s Contact Centre, in a new step to get closer to all customers.
The launch of the Contact Centre’s new number “188” aims to facilitate and speed up the communication of all types of customers with Ashghal, by providing a short, easy-to-use number to access any of the services provided by the Contact Centre. Those services include submitting service requests, suggestions, enquiries, complaints and notifications related to Ashghal. The centre operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure that all the requests and enquiries of the public are met.
Established in May 2013 as part of launching the Customer Service Excellence Programme, Ashghal’s Contact Centre has continued over the past four years to provide services quickly and effectively through a trained professional team who offers its services in Arabic and English using the latest technology to assist customers and answer their enquiries. The centre answered more than 247,000 calls and responded to more than 128,000 requests and enquiries for customers over four years since 2013. The contact centre has maintained a distinguished level of service over the past four years, with more than 88% of calls answered within 10 seconds according to the latest statistics on incoming calls during 2017.
The Contact Centre reached a positive reaction amongst the authority’s customers during the past four years, receiving many positive comments that commend the high speed and responsiveness, especially in relation to the speedy responsiveness to emergencies related to sewage and roads maintenance that are solved by the maintenance teams under the infrastructure affairs in Ashghal, where the customer satisfaction reached more than 91% yearly since the Contact Centre started and over four years.
In addition to that, the Customer Service Centre branches in the head office in West Bay and in Infrastructure Affairs office on Salwa Road, work to provide direct communication channels for the public to offer Ashghal’s services under one umbrella with ease and speed, through meeting its employees directly and interacting with them. The Customer Centre branches offer answers to customers’ enquiries and dealing with complaints and suggestions, in addition to accepting service requests, certificates and permissions.
Supporting these services is the Public Works Authority’s website, which has detailed and updated information about all different projects, and enables visitors to register to receive messages and instant alerts with the latest project updates, especially updates related to roads projects and implemented traffic diversions.
It is worth mentioning that the average number of Ashghal’s website visitors and users is witnessing a continuous growth, as the number of registered users on Ashghal’s website reached more than 2,800 companies, in addition to 18,000 individual users until May 2017, also the number of views on the website’s pages reached about 6 million view.
In parallel, Ashghal continues to enhance its presence on the social media platforms to improve interaction with customers including citizens and residents, and to keep them up to date about Ashghal’s projects and services. As the number of Ashghal followers reached more than 53k on Facebook, and more than 17k followers on LinkedIn until April 2017. While Ashghal’s followers on Instagram reached more than 15k, and more than 69k followers on Twitter, which is considered one of the most interacting platforms with the local society.
The launch of the new Ashghal’s Contact Centre number 188 as part of Ashghal’s efforts to provide outstanding services to its customers. It also aims to enhance procedures to access these services through launching different initiatives, as part of the Customer Service Excellence Programme, to implement its strategy that puts all types of customers first.