Questions/Answers

The Huduma Kenya Secretariat (HKS) established an in-house Contact Centre through which customers call to enquire and get information on the Government services that are offered to citizens countrywide through the Huduma Centres. The Huduma Contact Centre (Huduma Contact Centre) operates daily, inclusive of weekends and public holidays from 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. The Huduma Contact Centre receives an average of 600-700 calls in a day and over 300,000 customers have benefited from its services since its inception. The Huduma Contact Centre aims to address the challenge of inconvenience a customer usually faces when they have a Government related query or issue that needs to be addressed. Previously, one had to visit a Government office physically to get assisted on the same but the Huduma Contact Centre has been able to reduce the hassle for customers as all they have to do now is call in to get assisted. The Huduma Contact Centre objectives are to: Provide high quality, fast, dignifying and convenient services to customers calling in Boost Customer Satisfaction Reduce Customer Effort Act as a One-stop-shop for Kenyans who have enquiries on any Government services’ Receive, document, escalate and resolve customer complaints across all Government agencies.

The Huduma Contact Centre is the first Contact Centre in Kenya that handles enquiries on all Government services offered and is not limited to citizens only as even non-citizens can call in and get their required assistance therefore making it all inclusive. The Huduma Contact Centre is equitable as it delivers fair and impartial services to any customer calling in regardless of the customer’s age, tribe, location, gender, tribe or any other factor that may hinder them from being assisted.

Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions 8.2 Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high-value added and labor-intensive sectors 10.2 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status 16.5 Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms 16.6 Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels 16.10 Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements The Huduma Contact Centre has contributed towards the implementation of the above SDGs by: Creating job opportunities through hiring of the Huduma Contact Centre agents regardless of their age, gender, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic status but based on their skills. Leveraging on advanced ICT technologies i.e. Cisco ICT solution and soft phones for receiving and making calls; Giving clear turnaround times to customers calling in; Delivering fair and impartial services to any customer calling in regardless of the customer’s age, tribe, location, gender, tribe or any other facto Reducing corruption by giving customers accurate and clear information on the charges they are supposed to incur when requiring any Government service, and being an avenue of receiving any corruption incident a customer may have faced.

The Huduma Contact Centre is sustainable as all major long term operational costs have been met. High quality equipment, software and ICT solutions have been purchased which shall serve the Huduma Contact Centre for a minimum of 5 years. Additionally, the training and re-training of agents makes the Huduma Contact Centre sustainable as the agents go through an intensive training on all the Government services that customers may call in to ensure that the queries are answered in a timely fashion, thus reducing the rate of call backs greatly. The training is cost-free as Huduma leverages on the partnership made by the various Government agencies. Most training is done virtually thus making it economically sustainable. It is one of the core service delivery channels thus Huduma Kenya always ensures that key interventions are made to improve it and that it is running optimally at all times so that customers are never inconvenienced and there is always an agent ready to answer their calls. This completely eliminates the need for a customer to physically visit a Government office.

The Huduma Contact Centre has addressed the shortfall in Public Service Delivery where Kenyans previously had to go physically to certain government offices to get assistance on enquiries that they might have on a particular Government service. The Contact Centre has provided convenience to Kenyans especially the ones who find it difficult to go to the offices. They can simply call the Huduma Contact Centre number and get any assistance they require. The Huduma Contact Centre has also addressed the issue of citizens’ complaints not being addressed and resolved. The Huduma Contact Centre receives, documents, escalates and resolves all customer complaints that they might have experienced when seeking a government service and ensures the same is followed up and resolved within 72 hours. Customers are given a call back once their complaint is resolved.

The Huduma Contact Centre agents are taken through an intensive orientation and one of the emphasis is being impartial when serving a customer regardless of their gender; The Huduma Contact Centre also recruits new agents regardless of their gender, instead focusing on skill.

The target groups are: -Kenyans who want to visit any of the Huduma Centres in Kenya and are unable to make an appointment for themselves; -Kenyans who want to visit any Government offices for services but have certain enquiries before they do so;=-Kenyans who are in marginalized areas requiring Government services; -Kenyans in the diaspora. The Huduma Contact Centre has greatly improved outcomes for the above target groups as all they have to do is call the Huduma Contact Centre number to have access to information on Government services and solutions.

A committee was formed by the HKS and they were tasked with coming up with the requirements needed for Huduma Kenya to set up an in-house Contact Centre; The committee formed then facilitated the set-up of a Huduma owned Contact Centre to be stationed at the HKS by ensuring the operational costs had been met, potential agents had been interviewed and hired and the required equipment had been purchased. The agents then went through an intensive orientation and training on the various government services that are offered at all the 52 Huduma Centres countrywide. The Huduma Kenya Secretariat (HKS) after officially launched its in-house Contact Centre. The agents offer assistance to customers on booking appointments when they want to visit any Huduma Centre for a particular service, tracking the status of the documents that customers have applied through any Huduma Centre, Pensions transactional and informational services and assistance on any enquiries customers have concerning the various Government services that are offered countrywide. The Huduma Contact Centre uses an ICT developed monitoring tool to keep track of the total number of calls received and handled daily and the average & maximum call handling time for every agent. The Huduma Contact Centre also has a complaints sheet where the agents key in and track customers complaints to ensure they are resolved.

One of the obstacles that the Huduma Contact Centre faced was how to handle customer complaints. This was resolved by a Customer Complaint sheet developed by the Huduma Kenya Secretariat where agents now are able to key in the complaints that they receive and track them to ensure that they are resolved within 72 hours. Downtimes on SBA was also another obstacle faced. This was addressed routine hardware and software maintenance of the SBA system. The other obstacle was the lack of a portal where they could refer to when they are unable to tackle a query posed by a customer. This was resolved by an ICT developed Knowledge Portal which every agent can access that contains updated information on all Government services.

It is innovative in that it is the only Government-owned Contact Centre that houses information on all Government Services offered countrywide therefore, anyone calling in can benefit from it. Additionally, any person irrespective whatever location he/she is in can dial in and get assisted. It has eliminated the need of a customer having to walk in to a Government office to be assisted.

The Huduma Contact Centre drew inspiration from the various Kenyan private sector Contact Centres as they provide seamless and fast assistance to Kenyans with quick turnaround times. Huduma Kenya wanted to emulate the same in their in house Contact Centre. The Huduma Contact Centre also drew inspiration from the USA Government Contact Centre in the United States which acts as a one-stop-shop Contact Centre for all US related Government services.

The Huduma Contact Centre leveraged on a CISCO ICT solution software which offers a combination of multichannel contact management, intelligent routing, and network-to-desktop computer telephony integration (CTI) capabilities to improve management throughout the Contact Centre. The Contact Centre additionally operates on a Two-Way Contact Centre solution which is able to handle both inbound and outbound calls made.

Yes it has. For example, the Counselling Unit which is under the Ministry of Public Service, Gender, Senior Citizens Affairs & Special Programmes in Kenya adapted the initiative and developed its Contact Centre by leveraging on Huduma Contact Centre’s resources and ICT solutions.

-

1. ICT Resources - Huduma Kenya procured an ICT Solution (CISCO) 2. Human Resources - Huduma Kenya interviewed and hired 12 personnel as the Contact Centre agents 3. Financial resources - Huduma Kenya procured equipment (seats, desktops, laptops and headsets) to be used by the agents

The Huduma Contact Centre is financially sustainable as high quality equipment, software and ICT solutions have been purchased which shall serve the Huduma Contact Centre for a minimum of 5 years. This saves Huduma Kenya financial resources they would spend in regularly procuring the same. Training and re-training of agents is financially sustainable as the training is usually cost free as Huduma Kenya leverages on the Government agencies they have already partnered with. The fact that the Huduma Contact Centre staff are staff that are currently working at Huduma Centres makes the staffing process simpler and cost effective as Huduma Kenya is able to save on the recruitment expenses that may have been incurred if they wanted new and fresh agents to be hired who have not worked with Huduma Kenya before.

Yes

It was evaluated internally by the Huduma Kenya Secretariat through the Service Delivery Division.

The HKS conducted a Customer Satisfaction, Customer Experience, Impact Assessment and Net Promoter Score survey at the Contact Centre to obtain customer feedback for insights on areas of service improvement. It was evaluated through three questionnaires administered to customers previously served by each Contact Centre agent to measure if they were fully content by how they were served by the agents.

From the data analysed, it was established that 100% of the Citizens were able to access and receive the services they sought at the Contact Centre (100%)).This contributed to the high customer satisfaction level 100% for Contact Centre services. The respondents were most delighted by the friendly interaction with staff, staff professionalism and timely service at the Contact Centre. The Programme’ Customer experience was similarly rated high (100%) at the Contact Centre). The Programme’ social impact in terms of savings and benefits on the other hand was also quite high. Lastly, the Programme’ Net Promoter Score 75.9%implying that majority of the customers are satisfied by the Huduma Contact Centre and would gladly recommend Huduma Contact Centre services to their family and friends.

It is the one-stop-shop for all Government services related queries and it has collaborated with various (over 400) Government agencies and institutions to ensure that customers calling in always receive accurate and up to date information on whatever Government service they plan to seek.

The stakeholders for designing and implementing the initiative were the HKS leadership team which formed a committee that was tasked with facilitating the set-up of the Contact Centre. These stakeholders were under the Ministry of Public Service, Gender, Senior Citizens Affairs & Special Programmes Governance who approved the initiative. The stakeholders engaged during implementing and evaluating the Huduma Contact Centre are the ones currently offering their services at the 52 Huduma Centres countrywide. Apart from those ones, the ones not offering their services at Huduma Centres have also collaborated with HKS and Huduma Contact Centre so that when their customers call in, they are also able to be assisted by the Huduma Contact Centre agents. The engagement took place through the SD Division meeting with the various Service Leaders of Government Institutions present at Huduma Centres and agreeing that their services would be on boarded at the Huduma Contact Centre and they were able to provide training for the Huduma Contact Centre agents. The institutions not present at Huduma Centres were also engaged and agreed on the collaboration. The customers were also engaged through a customer satisfaction survey and through the Huduma Social Media pages so that Huduma Kenya can evaluate how the Huduma Contact Centre has been performing and how to improve it.

Lessons are: 1. Never losing sight of the customer. 2. The customer is always right no matter the situation 3. Focusing on time management and process improvement 4. Empathy and emotional intelligence are key attributes for the Contact Centre agents Improvements 1. There is need for the number that customers use to call in to be toll-free 2. There is need for recruitment of new agents so that the Huduma Contact Centre can be operating 24 hours instead of the current 12 hours.