Upgraded call centre opens

The mayor attended the opening of the revamped centre recently, saying that the metro wants to assure customers that there will be a major improvement in the manner in which their issues are recorded and handled by the call centre and subsequently responded to.

The mayor also admitted that the call centre has been an Achilles heel for the metro for a long time.

“There was a time when there was no week that would go by without our people complaining about the poor quality of service they experienced from the facility.

“I think it is proper that I reiterate my views about call centres: They either make you or break you as an institution,” said Gungubele during the opening.

“If your call centre is dysfunctional it clouds all the good work that you are doing as an institution – because, rightfully so, the community expects a particular service from the centre and if they cannot get it, their perception is that the institution is failing them and, therefore, they can no longer see any good that the city is doing.”

He pointed out that common among the complaints were calls going unanswered, callers kept on the line for a long time, delays in the dispatching of trouble-shooting teams, and call takers lacking information on the subject matter.

“All these led to members of the community concluding that our call centre was non-existent. I know that over the years we have been trying to change the situation, with very little or no success at all.

“Accordingly, the Call Centre remains one of the most critical and priority areas for the municipality to capacitate and overhaul. Now we can celebrate the new and improved call centre with the capacity to accommodate 50 additional agents per shift, with a total of 200 additional agents on a four shift system being underway.”

The mayor recalled how before the advent of the Ekurhuleni metro in 2000, each of the 11 erstwhile administrations which came together to form the metro had its own unique system of taking and dispatching calls. O

Only three municipalities – Kempton Park, Germiston and Alberton – had centralised call taking and dispatching systems while the others had decentralised systems wherein each department was running its own individual Call Centre.

“During the amalgamation process, a decision was taken to integrate all the systems into one. It was further concluded that all the workers from the individual administrations were to be migrated to this new facility.

“Despite this though, there were capacity challenges identified and had a negative impact on the service rendered to the public. One intervention that was identified was the outsourcing of the Call Taking and Dispatching for all Non-Life Threatening emergencies.

“The outsourcing process was short-lived due to unforeseen circumstances and the service had to be brought back to the Emergency Call Taking System pending the finalisation of Institutional Review Process.

“Only 50 call centre operators could be employed on contract at the time to run the operation at 12 people per shift. In some instances we would have as little eight call-takers per shift, as employees took time off due to various pressing reasons – hardly enough to handle the demands of the community.

“Compounding the problem was the size of the facility, which only had 30 telephone lines and, thus, could not handle all public complaints; lack of training of the operators; and below standard technology.

“Indeed a decision had to be taken and taken fast if we as a city were really committed to improving the quality of service rendered to our ratepayers. That decision was that the Call Centre needed to be urgently upgraded.

“The work that has been done so far in this regard includes the creation of more work space for the call takers; upgrading of the technology; adding Telkom lines from 30 to 100; and the implementation of a single customer relations management system for non-life threatening emergencies. This work started in earnest last year.

“To date all this work that I have mentioned has been completed and we have even introduced an Operations Rapid Intervention Team, which monitors and evaluates adherence to service delivery standards of services by departments.

“The performance of the call centre operators and departments is another intervention that we have brought in as we seek to get the best out of the Call Centre so that it is equal to the expectations of the public.

“Another innovation has been that of introducing a Twitter handle as a social platform by which our people can interact with the Call Centre. This product has been recording steady progress with more and more of our people utilising it.

“What I have just touched on so far are the short term deliverables that we identified as a city in our strategy to turn the call centre around. We have medium-term plans as well which should be concluded in the next financial year, with long-term interventions expected to be completed in the 2018/19 fiscal.”

The mayor said these interventions included the establishment of CCTV Surveillance Centre and Transport Management Centre, which should be operational in 2016, while the Unified Command Centre in Boksburg also being a long-term project.

“The metro needs to thank the people of Ekurhuleni who stood by us during the difficult and challenging times. I further appeal for the same understanding with the new facility as we expect some minor teething problems in the activation of this new facility.”