Khalid bin Mohamed bin Zayed launches “Abu Dhabi Effortless Customer Experience Program”

His Highness Sheikh Khalid bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Member of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and Head of the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, today launched the "Abu Dhabi Program for Effortless Customer Experience", to enhance the experience of all those who deal with government departments in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in accordance with international standards.

This program, which is based on Abu Dhabi's human-oriented approach, will allow everyone who lives and works in the emirate, as well as its visitors, to carry out various administrative procedures and government transactions such as completing procedures for acquiring real estate, establishing a company, or even exploring the emirate, quickly, easily and effortlessly.

On the sidelines of the program launch ceremony, His Excellency Saeed Al Mulla, Executive Director of the Customer Experience Sector in the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, said: “The launch of this program, which is the first of its kind in the Middle East, comes from our belief in the importance and necessity of improving customers’ experience with services provided by government agencies. And strengthening our position in this field, which is witnessing rapid development and transformation.”

He added: “The Abu Dhabi government has proven that it places community members at the top of the pyramid of its priorities and attention. The launch of this program today is nothing but a translation of these efforts aimed at facilitating the life of the individual, whether he is a citizen, resident or tourist, by simplifying the experience of dealing with government services and making it easier and effortless.”

This model has been designed in accordance with the best international standards, including based on the international model of customer experience in the government sector, issued by the International Corporation for Customer Experience in the Government Sector, a non-profit organization headquartered in Canada. This program has been conceptualized based on benchmarking with more than 20 leading governments from around the world and drawing on more than 80 studies.

The launch of this program follows the implementation of a successful pilot application on three government agencies, namely, the Department of Municipalities and Transport, the Department of Economic Development, and the Department of Community Development. These pilot programs have contributed to simplifying the customer experience by up to 50%, by reducing the time to complete transactions and procedures necessary to obtain services. An extensive and comprehensive review of the maturity level of customer service was also conducted at the level of all government services in Abu Dhabi, to assess the current customer service experience with a view to improving it in the future.

This program uses a comprehensive leadership approach to improve the customer experience by focusing on four main axes: strategic direction, design, development and service delivery. The program also relies on five strategic drivers represented in developing a customer experience policy and guide to determine the strategic direction to improve the performance of customer experiences provided through all channels; Then setting priorities by giving priority to customer trips to ensure that efforts and resources are focused around them and establishing a design laboratory to improve customer experiences in cooperation with the best global talent, and develop human competencies by enhancing the skills of customer experience staff to enable them to provide world-class experiences to customers; And finally, the performance measurement engine by developing an advanced model for measuring the performance of the customer experience, the most important of which is the customer effort indicator.

To ensure the continuity of excellence in providing an effortless customer experience, a comprehensive training program will be implemented in various government departments and agencies in the emirate, to enhance the customer experience, and to enable government agencies to cooperate with all concerned parties to provide a smooth and effortless customer service through all available channels.