ISLAMABAD, July 6: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) president and chief executive officer, Junaid I. Khan, on Tuesday called for adoption of drastic measures to improve the level of customers' satisfaction and enhance company's image.
According to a press release, the PTCL president was speaking at the 1st general-managers conference of the year held at the PTCL Headquarters. Mr Khan called upon all the general-managers, directors and divisional engineers to remove immediately all 'visiting hours' boards displayed outside their offices, and be available to customers all the time.
The PTCL president directed the general-managers to make all decisions purely on merit and without any pressures. He said merit should be the guiding principle, as it was the only way to win customers' confidence and loyalty.
He asked the regional chiefs to attach utmost importance to the emerging deregulated era where they would be faced with a fierce competition from the private-sector operators after a few months.
Only the companies offering quality services could survive in the deregulated environment, he added. The PTCL president specifically talked about the performance of services such as 17, 18 and 109, and called for their immediate improvement.
He said the PTCL's image was directly linked to these services, therefore, "we cannot afford to leave them at the helm of the affairs." Prompt steps are direly needed to make these services more efficient and reliable, he added.
Mr Khan congratulated the general-managers on achieving the targets set for the previous fiscal year and hoped that they would continue the same tempo in the coming days.
He said in future, the promotions of general-managers and all other staff would be made keeping in view their performance and level of commitment. The president urged the general-managers to increase their contacts with the customers and also encourage their subordinate staff, including the divisional engineers and SDOs, to do the same.
This, he added, would contribute greatly towards strengthening the PTCL-customers relations. "If our customers are satisfied and getting the best of services, they will definitely prefer to stay with the PTCL even in the deregulated environment."
Regarding new telephone connections, the president directed all the general-managers to personally ensure that the customers get new connection without any difficulty within 24 hours, where there was no network problem involved.
He said the procedure for new connections also needed to be simplified and only a copy of the applicant's NIC should be required when applying for a new connection. Mr Khan called upon all the general-managers to review their past performance and rectify any shortcomings. He said future course of action could also be determined in the light of the self-appraisal.
