DOHA: The multi-awarded Qatar Government Contact Centre (QGCC) has been a hit in reaching out to thousands of people in the country that officials are pushing to expand more of its services after a year of its operations.
Established by the Supreme Council of Information and Technology (ictQatar), QGCC executives announced yesterday of its plans to extend more services to the public in the wake of its growing demand from clients availing on its 24/7 government online services.
Mohammed Al Kuwari, iGov programme manager at QGCC, said because of its success on its one year of operation, they are now considering a possibility to deploy more call centre agents who can speak languages widely spoken by other expatriates in Qatar. Aside from existing line of services like telephone, fax, email, online web-form and SMS, the QGCC is also considering to offer customers online chatting services which had also gaining popularity especially among the more digitally-connected young generation.
Through its online services, QGCC has supported several national initiatives including the government e-portal Hukoomi, Government e-learning and expanding government network and its call centre agents directly facilitates knowledge network, the Medical Commission and ictQatar Helpdesk.
QGCC also provides centralised incident management and ticketing system among government entities like Supreme Council of Health, Hamad Medical Corporation, Ministry of Interior, Kahramaa, Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Business and Trade.
The government call centre wants to maximise the utilisation of its resources by expanding its call centre agents from 40 shifting staffs to a 100 more help desks to address the increasing calls not only locally but globally as well.
Because it applies world-class best practices and standards such as ITIL and COPC, QGCC has been nominated by awarding bodies as Best Government/Public Services Call Centre of the Year and the Best New Call Centre in the Middle East 2010.
Based on its statistics, there were more calls for inquiries than airing of complaints to its thousands of customers. Inquiries which cover 80 percent of the total calls that covers smart card, Resident Permits, the Medical Commission, visit visas and many others while complaints with only 20 percent range from Resident Permits and Medical Commission.
QGCC has also registered the most number of immediate responses in less than 20 seconds with 82,475 calls attended getting 85 percent while a minimal of 14,686 responses in more than 20 seconds with 15 percent.
Chris V Panganiban
© The Peninsula 2010
