Ministry of Culture delegation learns about Dubai Customs expertise of Customer Service
A delegation from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development was informed about Dubai Customs experience in ISO 10001:2007 certificate for its Client Service Charter that was recently attained by the Department being the first worldwide organization to receive such a certificate on both sectors; public and private.
During the delegation's visit to the Department's headquarter; they were introduced to the Client Service Charter that was developed and self-fulfilled by internal staffs and cadres at Dubai Customs in record time. The Charter includes a number of issues the Department is committed to towards its clients which have to do with quality services. It was designed to meet ISO 10001:2007 requirements taking into consideration involving the upper management and the respective departments as well as key partners in the process of designing, reviewing, assessing and editing the Charter to ensure it is being properly improved; hence, the constant quality services provided to clients as well.
The delegation was introduced to the work domains and the efforts made at Strategy and Corporate Excellence Department at Dubai Customs in cooperation with all other divisions and departments that contributed to the improvement of services offered to clients and helped the Department obtain several international and local quality certificates in different fields.
Mr. Edris Behzad, Senior Manager of Client Services Development at Dubai Customs gave a presentation on Dubai Customs' Client Service Charter and the Department's Complaints System for receiving and handling clients' complaints that also received ISO 10001:2004 certificate last year; such a certificate proved its legitimacy again this year when Dubai Customs managed to attain the certificate as the first government organization in the Middle East to receive it twice.
Mr. Behzad demonstrated design and development phases of the Client Service Charter starting from the creation of the team under the decision of H.E. Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Dubai Customs Director General that was made at the end of Mars 2009, Gaps Analysis Study through which the Charter was developed, ISO Requirements implementation, validation and implementation as well as the scrutiny operations performed by an external party; Lloyd's Register Company, an international organization that is a leading provider for ISO certificates.
The linguistic and cultural diversity at the UAE was taken into account while making the Charter, it exceeded expectations when it introduced TARJIM; a service that allows clients to submit their complaints and respond to them in their own language in addition to incorporating Sign Language and Braille where the Charter was published in Braille and a number of employees at different customs crossings, most significantly Dubai International Airport- received training courses on Sign Language to deal with clients' complaints in nine different languages.
During the meeting, The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development delegation enquired about the characteristics of the Client Service Charter that distinguishes it as well as the challenges that were encountered by the team which eventually led to receiving ISO 10001:2007 certificate among which the short duration of designing and implementing the charter as well as receiving the ISO certificate. Moreover, Dubai Customs had no prior international experience that can be referred to in order to be benefited from. It's worth mentioning that the Charter was developed by Dubai Customs' staffs without referring to any external consultation.
Mrs. Mariam Al Suwaidi, Director-Deputy of Organizational Excellence Department at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development expressed the delegation's satisfaction towards this visit who called it "very fruitful", she added:" Dubai Customs' experience in the field of Customer Service is rich and can be benefited from despite the different domains each side has on the grounds that there is a common objective that connects all federal ministries and local departments; that is customers' satisfaction. Dubai Customs has solid expertise in this field as it is now listed among the international customs departments that receive much credit especially from its clients. Besides, the work mechanism adopted by Dubai Customs to increase customers' satisfaction is praiseworthy and should be taken locally."
