National Contact Centre flooded by callers

The NCC received a record of more than 5,000 calls on the 17th of September 2012, highlighting the importance of the service to businesses, citizens, residents and visitors of Bahrain.

In a bid to accommodate the wide array of incoming calls, Silah Gulf (Silah) has increased the number of phone lines to cope with the peak demand period. Silah is a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and customer experience provider who is currently operating the eGovernment hotline. It is in the company's strategy to upgrade call capacity by increasing the number of incoming call lines, in order to ensure that their response rate remains reasonable as callers normally have to wait no longer than 10 seconds to be transferred to an operator. Exceptionally reaching 7 minutes per call on the 17th of September, Silah thrived to keep the queue times to their normal rates.

The centre was overloaded on a single day by receiving a large amount of calls equivalent to what is normally received in two weeks. The Ministry of Housing services witnessed over 1500% increase in call volumes, which enabled agents to only process 40% of these calls. In other words, over 700% of housing related calls were processed, compared to the capacity in normal situations.
NCC also received an unusual increase in volume of enquiries about services of the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Industry and Commerce and other large number of services offered on the eGovernment portal. Silah is working with their telecommunication service provider to determine the number of missing calls resulting from the maximum number of calls which exceeded the limit of trunks.

"The National Contact Centre has never experienced such increase in call volumes in one day, it indicates the importance of the government services which have been previously announced by the launched awareness campaigns as they boost the usage rate of services provided via the NCC," said eGovernment Authority Marketing and Awareness Directorate Assistant Director Mr. Mohammad Ziad Asfour.

On normal days, the centre receives approximately 10,000 calls per month and responds to an average of 94% of these calls within 10 seconds. It currently operates 90 call lines with an additional of 60 lines in progress. The new lines are to be launched in order to enhance the rate of response - such level of service makes it one of the top performing contact centres in the region.

"Our experience on the 17th underscores the critical and vital role the NCC plays in day-to-day government work. It also inspires us to double the capacity of the center in order to facilitate services offered by governmental entities such as the eGovernment Authority, Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Culture - Tourism Sector, Ministry of Human Rights and Social Development, Ministry of Industry and Commerce as well as Bahrain Investment Centre."

"The number of offered services through the center continues to rise and it is always a pleasure to receive opinions and suggestions of the public through the authority's social network accounts or via email; so as to develop the services," concluded Mr. Asfour.

Launched on 18th April 2011 under the patronage of Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Supreme Committee for Information and Communication Technology H.H. Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, NCC became the official call center for the government of Bahrain. Through which numerous ministries offer diverse services.

Industry and Commerce Ministry services include Commercial Registration (CR) application follow-up and enquiry, agencies enquiry, and daily price index. NCC also provides information related to licensing and legal regulations for setting-up businesses.

Ministry of Culture provides callers services related to cultural events and information needed by tourists and citizens. Such services comprise listings of hotels, furnished apartments, restaurants, sightseeing attractions, taxis, car rentals, airlines, entry visa rules and fees as well as prohibited and restricted items.

Housing Ministry launched a number of services through the center which enable users to follow-up on housing application status, booking appointments for new applications, requisitions for application forms, enquiring about eligibility rules of housing service applications which applicants would obtain forms by post.

Lastly, the Ministry of Social Development provides a range of services through the center by offering easy access to all information related to financial support and social assistance, enquiries of NGOs and rehabilitation programmes.