Ajman: It’s 10 past noon on a Thursday and Khalid Rahim Al Baloushi, a customer service representative (CSR) at etisalat’s Information Service (IS) in Ajman, is handling a call from Abu Dhabi.
The caller is on Khalifa Street and wants to know how he can reach the Chelsea Tower Hotel. With the help of the Geographical Information System (GIS) and his own road sense, Al Baloushi takes just 96 seconds to give precise directions in fluent English.
A little earlier, this reporter and a Gulf News videographer lose their way to Al Baloushi’s workplace — the etisalat Customer Care Centre — for a scheduled tour of the facility. But one call to 700017000, etisalat’s IS, and a reassuring CSR not only puts us back on track, but also stays on the line till we reach the destination.
‘Googling’ over a phone call may seem like a far-fetched idea, but if Hassan R. Hussain, Vice-President of the Customer Care Centre, will have his way, etisalat’s little-known IS will soon be the “Google” of the telecom world.
“My aim is to make our Information Service 700017000 the ‘Google’ of the telecom industry,” said Hussain, giving XPRESS access to the bustling call centre.
Wide coverage
Located in Ajman, the centralised facility covers all seven emirates and caters to some 200,000 calls made to etisalat on its various numbers, including 101, 181 and 700017000 every day.
A sprawling ground floor operations area has 652 stations from where customer service representatives work in shifts to provide round-the-clock service.
Forty of them are dedicated to the IS which receives around 4,000 calls a day. The figures seem deceptive given the wealth of information that the CSRs have at their fingertips — from point-to-point directions and events to information about school results, even beauty parlours.
“We are a one-stop destination for a wide range of enquiries in the UAE. Our services provide extensive information on not just locations, but also major events, hotels, dining, shopping, healthcare, business establishments, products, entertainment, sports, education, diplomatic missions and so on,” said Hussain.
Ahammed Shareen, IS officer in-charge said over 50 per cent of the calls are about location enquiries, followed by events, hospitality and dining. “Enquiries come in all forms, some straight, some bizarre and some plain ludicrous. But the bilingual CSRs who speak Arabic and English are trained to tackle them with patience and professionalism.”
Razia Hussain, a CSR for nine years, said: “I’ve had people asking me what day it is today or what it denotes to have dreamt about a cat. One customer who lost his way couldn’t give us any clues other than the fact that he was in a ‘desert’ and the closest landmark he could see was a ‘palm tree’. But we stayed with him on line and managed to bring him to his destination in Dubai. Sometimes, a single call can take up to an hour if the customer wants us to stay with him.”
Not all questions may fetch immediate answers. But CSRs take the caller’s number and direct the query to a back-office team that quickly looks up the subject and gets back to the caller.
When the caller makes a call, it costs Dh3 a minute but when IS returns a call, it is not charged to the customer.
Hussain said plans are underway to enhance the IS to include concierge services. “We are looking at partnerships with hotels, restaurants, tourist and concierge services to expand our level of support. By year-end, we should be able to give you not just the location of a hotel or restaurant, but also apprise you of promotions and make reservations.”
In numbers
Dh3
is the cost per minute of a call to 700017000
