(KINGSTON, Jamaica; 2021 October 27): Managing Director of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Mrs. Marlene Street Forrest will be the guest speaker at the Office of Utilities Regulation’s (OUR ) 5th Annual Symposium on Customer Service and Complaints Handling to be held on 2021 November 3.
The event will take the form of a mini conference, including two round table sessions with consumer affairs counterparts from regulatory agencies in Bahamas and Florida as well as speakers from local service providers, who will share their experience in complaints handling and customer experience. The theme of the event is, “Excellent Customer Service Delivery – Future Trends.”
The line-up of speakers include: Jeffery Smith, Regional Manager, National Water Commission; Terry-Kay Datadeen, Quality Assurance and Training Team Leader, Digicel Jamaica; Shanique Donaldson McIntosh, Manager, Customer Experience, Jamaica Public Service Company Limited; Sophia Morgan, Senior Manager, Customer Experience, FLOW and Naomi Watkins, Co-ordinator, Consumer Affairs (Operations), OUR. Other speakers are: Mavis Johnson Collie, International Relations Adviser, Utilities Regulation & Competition Authority (URCA), Bahamas, Stephanie Bolton, Director, Consumer Affairs Division, Maryland Public Service Commission and Yvonne Nicholson, Director, Consumer & Public Affairs Department, OUR. The event will be moderated by Rochelle Cameron, Attorney-at-Law and Consultant.
In 2017, the OUR organized the first Symposium on Utilities Customer Service based on the findings of its 2016 National Consumer Satisfaction Survey which revealed that customers did not generally think highly of the service they received from their utility providers. In relation to customer satisfaction, most respondents rated their utility providers as poor performers. Given these findings and in keeping with the organisation’s efforts to continually implement policies aimed at improving the quality of service delivered to utility consumers, the OUR in 2017 July and August, conducted a Mystery Shopping (MS) survey. This measured, among other things, the current levels of in-store customer service provided by the regulated utility providers and customer satisfaction in relation to the provision of prescribed utility services, such as service quality, specifically, customer experience. The findings of the MS Survey revealed that none of the utility service providers were delivering an above average customer service experience.
The first Annual Symposium created an environment where customer service representatives from the OUR, as well as major and private utility providers could converge to examine utilities customer service issues with a view to improving the quality of customer service.
Each year the Symposium provides a space for discussions between the regulator and the service providers to develop processes and procedures to improve the customer service experience of utility customers. It also provided a platform for the collaborative development of a Code of Practice, which, when finalized, will be adopted by the OUR and large and small utility service providers.
