The Regional Service Centre Entebbe (RSCE) held a virtual multi-client workshop on the Client Service Delivery Model (CSDM) on 24 and 25 August 2021.

The workshop was conducted for 8 special political missions and 1 peacekeeping mission that included UNITAMS in Sudan, UNSMIL in Libya, UNOCA in Central Africa, OSESG-Great Lakes, UNOWAS in West Africa and the Sahel, Cameroon -Nigeria Mixed Commission and UNOAU/HOA in Ethiopia and MINURSO in the Western Sahara.

The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the client missions to the hub and spoke model of the CSDM, ascertain the needs for each mission to best adopt the model and to align the Client Service Units in the missions as they prepare for the subsequent launch of the model.  CSDM is designed to streamline, enhance, and standardize client service delivery across the client missions and the RSCE.

In her opening remarks, the Deputy Director a.i., Ms. Nalini Contreras acknowledged commitment to the process “Today all of us are committing to sharing the ownership of the client service management, to creating a consistent approach to the escalation of queries, to creating one channel for managing client queries, to utilizing our limited resources and capabilities for better client service, to adopting a system that captures, tracks and monitors queries until they have been resolved, to fostering a culture of quality service provision within the missions and the RSCE and creating discussion points on trends to focus on and improve service in highlighted areas.”

The Chief of the Client Services Delivery Pillar, Ms. Benta Achieng Aseto took the workshop through a comprehensive presentation of the CSDM showcasing the advantages of the model and sharing key success factors that have improved client service delivery in missions that have already launched CSDM.

These missions include UNSOS in Somalia, UNISFA in Abyei, MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MINUSMA in Mali and MINUSCA in the Central African Republic.

Mr. Lamin Fatty from UNSOS, which launched in 2019, shared his missions experience with CSDM and noted that “Having a Client Support Unit is critical at mission level so that issues get treated at mission level at first and only those that cannot be treated at mission level get escalated to RSCE. It requires very close working relationship between mission CSU and CSDP at RSCE.”

He added that UNSOS saw the need to have their own version of iNeed to track and see their cases at a local level and how they were dealing with them. “The value addition in the medium to long term was to see how many cases were being handled at mission level, how many they were able to resolve and close and lastly how many were escalated to RSCE, were resolved in terms of time, RSCE’s own key performance indicators and, by extension, how this was a measure of client satisfaction.” As a result, UNSOS saw a decline in the number of cases going to RSCE and even less cases going beyond RSCE.  

MINUSMA Head of Client Support, Florence Karera, outlined MINUSMA’s journey before and following the CSDM launch in the mission, presenting its benefits, lessons learnt and the challenges they had and how they are dealing with them so far.

In three breakout sessions attended by 3 missions each, the CSDP and mission teams mapped out the strengths and weaknesses for each mission in regard to requirements on hand to launch CSDM. In the same sessions, ideas were exchanged on how to improve the conditions to create an optimum condition for the successful launch of the model.

During a Voice of the Mission session, the mission had an opportunity to share feedback on RSCE services as well as a proposed CSDM rollout approach.  Positive areas will be maintained while developmental areas will be addressed by RSCE Service Lines and the Regional Field Technology Services (RFTS) will continue to be a key stakeholder supporting the deployment and training of the iNeed Query Management tool.

At the end of the two-day workshop, missions in attendance had already developed draft plans and had begun considering launch dates. The workshop agreed on a monthly forum for CSDM engagement starting in September.

In related news, the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is scheduled to launch CSDM in the month of September 2021