The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) asks municipal account holders to update their contact details to receive accurate information on their properties and municipal services.
Kgamanyane Maphologela, the director of customer communications for the city’s Group Finance Department, said more residents who own properties and have municipal accounts with the CoJ are not updating their recent contact details with them.
“New and old residents who hold municipal accounts are unreachable because many do not update their contact details. This has led to the city struggling to reach these residents with essential information relating to their properties and municipal services,” said Maphologela.
Maphologela said the city had launched an email initiative called verification@joburg.org.za to get municipal account holders to verify and update their contact details.
He said the city will send emails from this address urging residents to update their contact details.
Maphologela said the challenge with outdated contact information was huge because it impacted the city’s turnaround time in responding to queries or service delivery requests, sending statements, and more.
Last year, between July and the end of November, the city ran a mini-survey when customer relations agents confirmed account holders’ contact details.
An astounding 57% of all account holders the agents interacted with during this period did not have their contact details with the city. Only 43% of those surveyed had listed only their email addresses as contact details.
Maphologela said the city must have accurate account holders’ contact details for prompt responses to addresses and to resolve their municipal services queries, communicate important updates, policy changes, and service announcements promptly and ensure a high service satisfaction level.
Maphologela encourages account holders to update their contact details via verification@joburg.org.za, the Call Centre (0860 562 874) or any of the city’s walk-in Customer Service Centres.
