Dubai: Do you know which are the best — and the worst — government service centres in the UAE?
Well, an official list of the top five on either end of the spectrum will be out soon, thanks to an evaluation that has now begun.
Announcing this in a tweet on Monday, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said that the results for the best and worst government service centres, from a pool of 600, will be revealed on September 14.
“We will now start to evaluate the services of 600 government service centres. On September 14, we will announce the worst five service centres and the best five... My message to officials: We will not accept anything short of the first position globally in our services and facilities,” Shaikh Mohammad tweeted.
The UAE is ranked first regionally, and entered, for the first time, the top five globally in the recent IMD World Competitiveness Rankings. The UAE also ranks first globally for business efficiency, outshining other economies in areas such as productivity, digital transformation and entrepreneurship.
Earlier warning
Monday’s announcement comes three months after the Vice-President issued a Twitter warning to government service centres against tardy customer service by laying bare a mystery shopper’s picture of a long queue at an Emirates Post counter.
In that tweet on April 22, Shaikh Mohammad, said, “This is not our standard, nor our service. I will not keep in my team whoever offers such a poor level of service.”
He also tweeted the highlights of a report that evaluated Emirates Post on various parameters including services, effectiveness, customer experience, absorption capacity and work culture.
Overwhelming response
The tweet received an overwhelming response, with Shaikh Mohammad’s followers saluting him for his hands-on and transparent style of governance. Many of them also took the opportunity to raise their concerns or bring to light unresolved complaints regarding various services.
The immediate replies they got from the concerned entities on Twitter, they hoped, would translate into action at the earliest.
The complaints were wide-ranging and cut across departments as they covered everything from health, education and jobs to parking, street lights and even the media.
Residents wanted mystery shoppers to be sent to hospitals, clinics, post offices, schools, colleges and telecom centres, among other places, to help improve their functioning.
Dewa welcomes move
Reacting to Shaikh Mohammad’s tweet, Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, CEO and managing director of Dewa, said: “We value the directives of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. We work to achieve the vision of His Highness, which outlines the road map of all our work, initiatives, and services. We provide smart and innovative services to all our customers. All our initiatives and projects aim to make our customers happier by saving their time and effort, providing them with services according to the highest standards of efficiency, reliability, and availability. This is done within an integrated framework that ensures continuous improvement to ensure leadership in customer happiness. We have achieve this by institutionalising mechanisms to maximise benefits of the Happiness Index, which Dewa adopts in all its smart services; contributing to the development of services and channels as well as enhancing our customers’ experiences. We have developed mechanisms that enrich their experience and contribute to the provision of seven-star quality services at our Customer Happiness Centres, making them centres for creativity and development.
“As a result of these efforts, Dewa has maintained its top position in the Happiness Index in the large Dubai government entities category for the second consecutive year with a 95 per cent happiness level according to Smart Dubai’s Happiness Index. This monitors happiness levels among the people of Dubai, and contributes to enhancing the efficiency, measurement and enhancement of smart services in Dubai, to achieve the highest levels of customer happiness. This confirms Dewa’s pioneering position as a model for excellence, and recognises its efforts to ensure customer happiness.”
