“In our previous meetings with you and your colleagues on this subject, you expressed an interest in knowing the results of our Public Survey, which as His Excellency has said, is the first of its kind in the Kingdom,” he said.
“We conducted the Survey so that we could identify strengths and weaknesses in our service delivery, and knowing these, we committed to taking actions to overcome shortcomings and raise the bar for how we serve you, the people of Bahrain,” he added.
“We completed at the end of 2011 with our survey specialists ACK Solutions, a very successful Core Services Survey amongst 5699 members of the general public. Our target for participation was 5,000 and we found there was so much interest that we extended this scope to include another 699 people. This survey sought opinions on Roads and Sanitary services, and took place in all 5 Governorates of the Kingdom,” he said.
“And now to the most important news – what did we find out?
Results showed that 49.2% of those surveyed were satisfied or very satisfied with Roads services, the percentage of dissatisfied respondents was 11.9% (the rest were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied). In responding to questions about Sanitation services, 52.9% described themselves as satisfied or very satisfied, and 14.9% were dissatisfied,” he said.
“The survey uncovered general dissatisfaction with the way in which MoW interacts with its customers, especially around major works that impact them. The dissatisfaction falls broadly into 2 main areas i.e. delays in addressing complaints and absence of customer interaction.
“Now that we have the results we are currently evaluating options to address these 2 main areas for improvement.
The main initiative will be the creation of a dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) function to improve the 2 way flow of information and obtain valuable data on customer opinions and service experiences. This CRM function will also enable us to speed up response to complaints. The Ministry is addressing areas of weakness directly as opportunities to improve, so, what can members of the public expect to see?
“We envisage that elements of our CRM system could include a call centre; 2 way feedback via the website; social media engagement and management; a face to face interaction facility; regular public majlises and reorganization of our existing complaints handling function to better receive feedback and facilitate speedy resolution of complaints.
“We have already begun exploring best practice in the area of CRM, and are already putting in place systems to enable us to progress with this major project – it won’t happen overnight, but we have prioritized this and are committed to it.
“We will be monitoring ourselves to see progress in line with the best practices defined in our management strategy system. We intend that our customers can see clearly the actions we are taking as a result of their feedback, which demonstrates how seriously we take our job of delivering world-class public services. We are an organization with a sense of duty and urgency.”