Entebbe, UGANDA (October 7, 2019). This year, the International Customer Service Week will be celebrated from 7th to 11th October. The week will focus on the customer and celebrate the importance of customer service and the people who serve and support the customer every day. 

Great Client service should be the norm for every organization. The method of delivery of the client service experience needs to be continually updated to meet the expectations of a dynamic client base and that is why the client experience needs to be designed to achieve easier and better customer experiences.

The Regional Service Centre Entebbe (RSCE) serves 19 UN client Missions in Africa carrying out over 700,000 transactions a year for close to 20,000 personnel. Understanding the sensitivity and importance of our role in the region, we adopted a more client focused approach to service delivery. As a result, RSCE has chosen to celebrate the week under the theme - ‘Great Service Starts With Me’.  This underscores the RSCE Leadership’s commitment towards great service, leading from the front.

“The clients require quality service based on reliability, assurance, empathy, good communication and responsiveness.  To ensure these values are applied daily to our work, the RSCE developed a dedicated client service pillar with the singular role to manage client. A hub-and-spoke model that defines the operational model between the unit and the missions was also designed and roll out. This model has greatly reduced lead times, improve client experience and allow other pillars to function effectively.” Said RSCE Chief, Paulin Djomo.

Client satisfaction is the key metric for determining the success of any support organization while secondary priorities may include first call resolution, average handle time, and wait time.

This week we have made a commitment of Target 0 in 48 hours. This is basically our promise to attend to and resolve all issues within 48 hours and we want to ensure that we have no issues going unresolved for a duration of 48 hours within this week. All Service Lines have made this commitment and we shall be rewarding the best performers of the week at our get together on Friday 11th October.

During the International Client Service Week, RSCE has lined up several activities which place great emphasis on internal as well as external clients.  Through the daily client service tips shared with staff, the staff will be reminded of the pre-requisites of great service, which should enhance service delivery within the week and sustainably going forward.  Further as great service depends on leadership support, the RSCE leaders have planned for activities with their teams that will demonstrate this through an initiative known as Walk-a-Mile-In-My-Shoes.  Individual staff and teams go to great lengths in providing outstanding service.  During this week, there will be an opportunity to recognize and celebrate them.

As service is not delivered in isolation, a moment too will be spared to recognize and celebrate external service providers the unsung heroes. As a Centre that provides great service to client missions, we too as clients, have others that we rely on for support. There is a large team of security personnel that ensures we are safe everyday both on and off the base. There is an army of cleaners that ensure we operate in a clean and healthy environment. We have medical team that attends to all our health needs when they arise, and we are fed everyday with healthy and tasty meals by our catering team.

Without this support structure, we would not be able to pass on the great service we do to our clients and for this we say a very big thank you to them and we acknowledge them for the work they do to keep us healthy and fit enough to serve our clients.

The RSCE ICCS week celebrations and activities are inspired by the quote in 2018 by The Secretary General, Antonio Guterres who said, “The goal of reform is a 21st-century United Nations focused more on people and less on process, more on delivery and less on bureaucracy. The true test of reform will be measured in tangible results in the lives of the people we serve – and the trust of those who support our work.”

At RSCE we are surely fulfilling this promise and we shall celebrate the Customer Service Week at the base with a number of activities geared at celebrating the staff and the clients that are working to ensure we keep the Secretary General’s promise.