Dubai Customs again succeeds in earning ISO 10002:2004 certification for the 5th successive year

Dubai Customs has recently successfully made a new achievement by earning for the 5th successive year ISO 10002:2004 Certiofication for Customer Complaints System. This reflects Dubai Customs’ commitment to boost the satisfaction of its real business partners; its customers, and handle their complaints as soon as possible.

Dubai Customs is the first department in the Middle East to earn the foresaid certificate. It succeeded in earning this international certificate for the first time in 2008on the basis of the results of the external auditing performed by Lloyd's Register, the certification body, on the consistency of the procedures followed by Dubai Customs in handling and addressing customer complaints and their efficiency in preventing similar or repeated complaints to be made by documenting the system’s entries and records.

Ms Feryal Tawakul, Executive Director of Community Affairs and Government Partnership Division at Dubai Customs, said :” Dubai Customs’ success in earning this international certificate for the fifth successive year mirrors its commitment to Dubai Strategic plan 2015, whichis an integral part of the UAE Development Strategy, particularly in respect to excellence in government performance, strengthening a culture of transparency and enhancing customer service, all for the purpose of leveraging Dubai’s economic position”.

"Dubai Customs has set up a methodology for handling customer complaints that is based on best global practices in complaint system, including ISO 10002:2004, for the purpose of establishing a trusted, unified reference that relies on best global practices of handling customer complaints efficiently, preventing their repetition in the future and benefiting of these complaints to continuously improve and develop Dubai Customs’ services and performance, which will increase customer satisfaction of the level of delivered services. Addressing and handling complaints is currently done as per the “Dubai Government Unified Customer Complaints Guide” which details the steps of complaints’ receipt, handling and resolution”, she added.

Tawakulindicated that Dubai Customs managed to increase customer satisfaction of the complaint system last year to %97.5, by constantly meeting customers’ demands, facilitating their transactions and solving their problems.  Moreover, Dubai Customs was able to decrease customer complaints by %13 in 2011, compared to the year before, in addition to cutting the complaint handling period to only 3 working days, starting from the date of receipt and ending by reaching a final solution. This exceeds the target specified by the Dubai Executive Council, which states that a complaint must be resolved in 7 working days.

On his part, Ahmed Abdul Salam Kazim, Director of Strategy and Corporate Excellence at Dubai Customs, said “ This achievement is in line with Dubai Customs strategic plan, particularly the third goal in respect to “Relying on best practises in work procedures and systems” and the second goal related to “Improving customer satisfaction and loyalty”. It affirms the excellence approach in all work fields at Dubai Customs, as this system contributes to enhancing customer confidence and adds to the efforts exerted to develop performance levels in this field.”

“Dubai Customs is keen on boosting excellence, innovation and leadership in government work, following the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, stating that “excellence has become the key approach of any government employee in order to achieve the UAE Vision 2021”. This will position the UAE among the best world countries”, he added.

Dubai Customs launched many pioneering initiatives in the past few years to further develop the Complaints System. It was the first organization in the world to launch the Client Service Charter which is also developed in line with the ISO 10001 certificate. In addition, Braille was incorporated into the Client Service Charter in cooperation with Emirates Association for the Blind. "TARJIM", an outstanding service in the Middle East, was also launched; it enables the clients to submit their complaints in additional seven different languages; Spanish, French, Chinese, Persian, Indian Urdu and Russian as well as the previously used languages; Arabic and English. The customer service employees were taught sign language and a number of specialized training courses were offered for that matter. Besides, a number of employees were delegated to handle the complaints submitted by the people of special needs.

Dubai Customs’ experience in implementing the ISO 10002 for its Customer Complaints System received an overwhelming global recognition, as Lloyd's Register, the certificate provider company, chose it to be one of the distinguished administrative experiences in the world and displayed it on its website along with other giant companies such as General Motors, Boeing and Fedex. It also published the successful story in a number of specialized magazines in Europe and the US to open the door for others interested to learn about this distinguished experience to benefit from it.

Moreover, several delegations from government and semi-government organizations and private companies paid visits to Dubai Customs to learn about its complaint handling experience, reflecting the Department’s leadership and excellence.