New call centre falling behind

The call centre that was launched three months ago in a government effort to upgrade public services has had a false start, prompting the Finance Ministry to send out urgent cables to civil servants.

According to daily Phileleftheros, many civil servants are failing to contribute to the project, which was aimed at improving the quality of customer service offered to individuals who seek to interact with the state.

The number 1434, which had minimal usage up until last October, became the proposed solution for citizens who dial nationwide between 8am and 8pm, seven days a week, to be routed to a contractor and obtain information by phone or via email.

Accessible records included general information and a number of cases available through the online government portal ARIADNI, with added features on social security and welfare benefit cases.

But many civil servants in different offices and departments have not been providing timely information, with the new service lacking the necessary feed of information to meet its goals of providing customer service.

The Finance Ministry recently issued an urgent cable to civil servants in various ministries, government departments and state agencies, asking them to provide information promptly into the system so that the Call Centre can succeed in helping citizens cope better in their interactions with the state.

“While changes were implemented, they did not integrate within the system,” the cable read according to Phileleftheros.

The biggest problem is the ticketing aspect of the new system, where citizens with an online account submit a ticket regarding a issue and a call centre representative has two days to respond or otherwise update the information in the system.

But due to delays or lack of feeding information back into the system, the Finance Ministry cable is also calling on the department heads in various offices to alert the government to any potential problems where they see pending tickets as well as offer suggestions for improvement.