Thursday, Jun 23, 2016

Dubai: The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the UAE (TRA) is going to grade the business centres of the telecom operators — etisalat and du — in bid to increase the level of customer service in the telecom sector.

The new initiative — Irteqaa — is based on a set of quality standards set by TRA and the operators. The project falls under a wider initiative called ‘Esaad’, which was launched recently by the federal entity.

In 2017, all business centres in the UAE will be classified as similar to the rankings in the hotel industry.

Hamad Obaid Al Mansouri, director general of the TRA, told journalists that the ‘Irteqaa’ will adopt six major standards for the evaluation of business customer services and several minor criteria including rating the ease and smoothness of service delivery and the customer’s experience with employees in terms of professionalism, efficiency and interaction.

“Our role at TRA is to increase the competition. The ratings standards will also assess the service centres’ facilities, prominent display and services, as well as their innovativeness. We believe that the customer should be at the heart and priority of our services to achieve excellence and make our standards different from the rest of the world,” he said.

The initiative will be implemented in two phases — etisalat, du and other franchise service centres will work together in the trial stage to align their customer service centres with the new services standards.

The second phase will be the actual evaluation of the centres and how they apply the standards to ensure quality services.

Saleh Al Abdouli, CEO of etisalat Group, said that smart business centres has been designed specifically to give visiting customers a new experience full of evolution and innovation, high reliability, save time and effort, and enable them to complete their transactions quickly and easily.

“In order for the customer services to live up to international standards, we periodically evaluates the performance indicators and conduct periodic surveys to measure customer satisfaction,” he said.

Osman Sultan, CEO of du, said the strategy will help increase competition by enhancing their features and promoting innovativeness.

“As we grow our Smart City, we have come to the realisation that telecom services play a key role in day-to-day life and we are completely dedicated to steadfastly digitising and developing smart telecommunications services throughout the UAE. We are working hand in hand with our partners in this initiative, TRA and etisalat, for the benefit our country and its progress,” he said.

By Naushad K. Cherrayil Staff Reporter

Gulf News 2016. All rights reserved.