All ministries to establish customer service units
THE Government will be establishing customer service or service excellence units in all ministries over the next two years.
The move aligns with the recently launched Service Excellence Policy that will govern the standard of service delivery by the public sector to internal and external customers.
Principal director in the Office of the Cabinet’s Public Sector Modernisation Division (PSMD) Karlene McKenzie Spencer made the disclosure during an interview with JIS News.
“The Ministry of Finance and the Public Service will be supporting the PSMD in the implementation of the service excellence function. As a part of that, it is required for all ministries to have customer service units to monitor and to guide the implementation of the process of the service excellence programme,” she said.
She noted that the two-year timeline takes into consideration the various ministries that are at different points in establishing their service excellence programmes.
“There is a timeline for roll-out. All ministries are at different stages in their development, and as such, one ministry will be capacitated long before another. We are hoping that we’re able to have this in place within the next two years within all our ministries,” she said.
She said establishment of the units could be completed before the two-year timeline, with the Ministry of Finance assisting the ministries to engage the right personnel.
The complete overhaul of customer service in the public sector is a process that will require staff adapting to new processes to ensure that the needs of customers are met.
McKenzie Spencer noted that each ministry has its own set of challenges, and the PSMD is committed to helping them make the necessary changes.
“Some public-sector entities will require different approaches, so the persons within the service excellence function will be working closely with them, understanding their unique needs and their circumstances,” she said.
“The one-size-fits-all is not going to work. In order to get them [the entities] to work well, someone will be sitting beside them and ensuring that whatever issues they’re having that is unique to them, we will be putting in place a strategy or a mechanism to address it,” McKenzie Spencer said.
