just an opinion

Post and homing pigeon

Faisal Muhammad Al-Shamri

August 29, 2020

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, surprised us by publishing part of the notes of a secret shopper about a postal service center, and we were pleased with the tangible improvement that was achieved within days in the same center, but the other remarks about electronic and smart postal services And the innovative continues.

We propose a real privatization  of the sector or a radical treatment.

Mail is the backbone of communication, and it is still one of the most important channels that the community uses when requesting purchases from other countries and continents, so let alone if you are waiting for the arrival of a new passport for travel purposes, or a renewed credit card, and you receive text messages that it is on the way to you, and that the competent employee called and did not You answer him, while in reality no one has called you, and your hand is clinging to your phone, and when you try to call the service center number, you think that you have added a new impossible to the impossible of Arabs, such as phoenix and loyal vinegar!

And without a magic call here or there, you will remain without your new passport or renewed credit card, so where to follow up on the completion of transactions, monitor customer satisfaction, and also measure the period of service completion? It is one of the basics of service excellence.

With the decision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to cancel 50% of government service centers and convert them to digital platforms within two years, we expect that some services will develop and improve, achieving the necessary flexibility to ensure customer satisfaction, and give a true reading of the period of service delivery, And deliver important documents without delay, or fake text messages reminiscent of phishing text messages!

Among the advantages of the "Covid-19" pandemic are accelerating digital transformation plans, introducing innovative initiatives and services, enhancing readiness for the future, dealing with crises, the maturity of digital services, the resilience and strength of the digital economy, and stimulating society to use digital services and payment channels.

The inability of a long-standing institution to merge payment bills with a single transaction, or even a clearing of fees to recover fees paid by mistake, leads us to recall the era of using carrier pigeons in the mail, and the launch of a package of services intended for the elderly, and not activating them, such as delivering the content of mailboxes to them without the need to visit Service centers, urges us to ask the concerned about the feasibility of advertising fake services, especially since some bought goods and waited for their arrival and remained without informing him of them, and returned, because they remained for more than two weeks without receiving, to the party from which the purchase was made!

This prompts us to propose either real privatization of this sector or a radical treatment of the remarks contained therein, and what His Highness the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai ordered, relatively shortly ago, is an example of their rapid development potential, as the era of homing pigeons is over.

A non-resident internal administrative advisor at the Emirates Knowledge and Consulting Center at the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government

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