IT’S a historic day for eThekwini as Mayor Zandile Gumede launched the City’s first integrated toll-free customer service contact number, 080 311 11 11 and Mayoral Hotline number, 031 322 8200.
Addressing Amakhosi, Abefundisi, business representatives, municipal officials, media, councillors and officials, Gumede said the customer service number and Mayoral Hotline are a direct response to the people’s needs so that all citizens enjoy a high quality of life with equal opportunities.
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In line with the City’s vision, and in trying to meet the people’s needs, the Municipality is currently reviewing its Customer Relations Management Strategy with the aim of being more responsive, efficient and consistent in the services delivered to the eThekwini community.
She said the one number is for any queries relating to water, revenue, and electricity or to contact the City’s switchboard.
This one number is toll-free from any landline or cell phone and will be operational 24 hours.
The Mayoral Hotline is open to the public and is for the citizens who have exhausted all other processes of logging a complaint, requesting a service, etc.
It is the last resort when all other avenues have failed. The office is already operational with a staff compliment of 10 trained people and currently operates on 12 lines.
“The Mayoral Hotline is an extension of our operational Sukuma Sakhe. We have systems in place to deal with escalated issues from the ground. We need to be accessible to the public and through the Mayoral Hotline, we remain accessible,” said Mayor.
The new tollfree, one number, and Mayoral Hotline number follows the success of the Municipality’s WhatsApp number for assisting customers in dealing with most of the water and sanitation related matters.
The municipality was driven to ensure that customer service interface was brought to a level that customers expect and the first phase of integrating the services of the water, electricity revenue and council switchboard together with the Mayoral Hotline was to ensure that the City would deliver a efficient and effective customer service more rapidly.
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Further to integrating customer service the Municipality will look at more convenient technologically appropriate and cost effective intervention that will move the City a little closer to being a Smart City.
In the pipeline is the new municipal mobile App. This App will allow a live interaction between the Municipality and citizens to do various things such as to log water and electricity faults, check statements, events, weather and traffic.
“We will also have eThekwini Municipality TV which will be at the walk-in centres, displaying information such as services offered and any notices,” added the Mayor.
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