better counter services soon?

the gomen announced that dept. bosses will make surprise visits to see for themselves how counter staff run their services.

all good and well but er… i’m sure the staffs recognise their boss, so if they see the boss visting them, they will surely put on their best behaviour by being oh so nice and efficient to the public… so how do the boss gauge them? this i don’t understand.

mohd sidek the chief secretary to the gomen, said he wants counter staff not  only to provide fast service but to provide it  with a smile! hmm…. this reminds me, wasn’t it sometime back there was this ‘service with a smile’ campaign? whatever happened to it now?

sidek also wants the staff to answer telephone calls at the third ring. third ring? hmm… so far i think when i called gomen dept. they usually take a long time to answer.

well, the malay mail in response to this, carried out a survey to test the ‘3 rings answered’ efficiency, by calling 10 gomen dept. seems that 4 dept. failed the test and whaddya know, one of them was the public service dept!!

The other three were the National Higher Education Fund, Social Security Organisation and the Employees Provident Fund. Calls by our team, who dialled numbers listed on websites, were promptly answered by the Education and Road Transport ministries, the Immigration and Welfare departments, Federal Territories Consumer Claims Tribunal and the Housing and Local Government Ministry.

well i should also do an experiment myself one of these days and test see which dept. are more prompt in answering phones. long time i haven’t contact any gomen agencies so i don’t know. i remember long ago when i was working at an architect’s firm, i had to deal with many gomen agencies and the most efficient in answering phone call was the balai bomba (fire engine dept)! not only were they quick to pick up the phone but they were so courteous. that was many years back though.

i wonder will the spot checks make the counter staffs more efficient? i doubt it. being efficient and courteous have to come from themselves… not to be forced just because "any time my boss might drop in".