The Workplace of Utilities Regulation (OUR) has requested the Jamaica Public Service Firm (JPS) to develop a plan of motion to handle the hole in buyer entry to the corporate’s providers that has been attributable to the closure of 10 of its 15 Buyer Service Places of work (CSOs) throughout the island between February 2020 and March 2021.
In a launch on Sunday, the OUR mentioned having analysed the outcomes of its Parish Closure Affect Evaluation (Section 2), it has requested JPS to evaluation the house it has made out there for purchasers to interface with its workers, and to develop a buyer resolution that satisfies face-to-face requests for its providers, resembling new service purposes, reporting complaints, making invoice queries, and requests for service reconnection and disconnection.
The utility service regulator mentioned JPS is to contemplate and motion suggestions for opening handy hubs in high-traffic areas and/or at put up workplace areas; making the MyJPS Cell App zero-rated to offset any elevated price to prospects to entry JPS providers via that channel; and negotiating with invoice cost companies to put in courtesy telephones at these areas.
The OUR mentioned the influence evaluation research discovered that 77 per cent of JPS prospects in parishes with out CSOs need the places of work to be reopened.
The research additionally discovered that price, comfort and entry are the primary the explanation why practically 80 per cent of JPS prospects surveyed thought that the facility firm ought to reopen a few of its places of work. This was regardless of buyer satisfaction with middleman invoice cost companies and different channels, such because the cellular app and on-line cost portals.
Notably, solely 5 JPS CSOs now serve over half 1,000,000 prospects, with solely two places of work serving prospects in every of the counties of Cornwall and Surrey.
OUR Director Common, Ansord Hewitt, in reacting to the findings, mentioned: “The research conveys the sentiment of most of JPS’s prospects impacted by the workplace closures, and positively, the views of these with whom we have now interacted within the numerous communities and thru our Shopper Affairs Unit. The OUR takes buyer care and customer support critically, and has made nice efforts to handle this subject.
“Whereas the OUR is reluctant to prescribe particular modes for utilities to handle their customer support obligations, it stays unequivocal in its place that the choices provided should not impose undue inconvenience or hardship for purchasers to entry or make use of them. On this regard, we encourage JPS to contemplate creating extra face-to-face choices for purchasers and discover different choices to shut the gaps highlighted by affected prospects.”
The analysis was commissioned by the OUR in gentle of the general public outcry concerning the workplace closures and JPS’s introduced initiatives to mitigate the influence of such closures on its prospects.
The OUR mentioned it discovered it essential to conduct a scientific influence evaluation to evaluate the impact the closures have had on prospects and the extent of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the measures/channels which are carried out by JPS to ship customer support.
JPS justified the closures by citing dwindling walk-in visits to their CSOs, fuelled by digitisation and additional impelled by the Authorities and globally imposed ‘no-contact’ COVID-19 insurance policies, which restricted buyer footprint.
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