KINGSTON, Jamaica — Director General, Public Sector Transformation and Modernisation, Office of the Cabinet, Veniece Pottinger Scott, says the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic can be seen as an avenue for the public sector to retool and become more efficient in service delivery.

“The COVID pandemic has forced us to revise approaches and rethink the way we deliver service. In fact, it has given us an unprecedented opportunity to become more innovative and improve our ability to adapt to the new ways of reaching and delivering services to our clients,” she said.

Pottinger Scott was speaking via video conferencing at the official launch of Customer Service Week, staged by the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation (MEGJC) at its Dominica Drive offices in New Kingston today.

She noted that as the largest service provider, the public sector “must move aggressively ahead to create new and improved means of delivering service and an improved service experience for our clients”.

“The business of service excellence must never be taken lightly as our country is increasingly being called upon to operate and survive in this highly competitive global business market, albeit against the backdrop of this COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.

In the meantime, the director general praised the MEGJC for its unwavering commitment to improving service delivery throughout the entity and all its related departments and agencies.

“The completion of your customer service improvement plan is a beacon of this… . It is clear through your ongoing work and efforts, that the MEGJC remains committed to making the delivery of service to its clients and customers a much easier and more seamless process,” she said.

Pottinger Scott said the Office of the Cabinet stands ready to continue to provide the MEGJC and other ministries with the requisite support to achieve the objectives of their respective customer service improvement plans.

“We continue to work with all Ministries to develop and implement tailored customer service improvement plans. These improvement plans [are devised] after assessing areas of gaps in the delivery of service for each entity [which are then] addressed through targeted interventions,” she said.

In keeping with the drive for improved customer service delivery, Pottinger Scott informed that a dedicated function is being implemented within the Cabinet Office to have monitoring and evaluation responsibility for the delivery of services across all Government entities.

“This new function will remain on the cusp of new technologies to be used in automating and increasing the efficiency of services, and it will further seek to revise and implement new service standards as needed,” she said.

Customer Service Week is observed during the first week of October each year. The week is being celebrated by the ministry in tandem with the Customer Service Association of Jamaica during the period October 4-9, under the theme ‘Customer Service a Fi Wi Business – Big and Small, Serving All’.