For the top flight learning institution in the Caribbean, the University of the West Indies Mona campus needs to do a tremendous amount of work to improve its customer service, which I would classify as being extremely poor at best.
I spent the better part of two hrs today trying to make contact with the folks at the University and I must tell you the experience was one of sheer frustration.
Calls to every number I rang, went unanswered most of the time and when someone actually answered the phone, they were not in a position to assist you in finding whomever you were looking for and in most cases could not provide a telephone.
On one occasion a young lady answered the phone and sounded like she was on life support and barely hanging on. Almost every question asked was met with the following response ” that person no longer works in this department”.
I then ask ” who worked in that department that I can speak with apart from you”, she gave me a name then went unto explain that the individual was not available as they were at lunch.
A visit to the UWI website showing the contact listing for certain areas was completely outdated, with names of people who no longer worked in those departments and numbers which lime indicated were no longer in service.
UWI Mona needs to get its act together and as a institution of higher learning, needs to teach it staff what customer service is all about.
At time of writing and three hours after the first contact I still have not been able to speak to anyone from the department I was hoping to get and I frankly have given up for the day
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: commmunciation |
Warren's Blog 
Sounds like my experience at a public university in NY. Meanwhile, at private universities in NY & Miami, the service is 100% better and teachers actually give a crap. What is the difference? Accountability and efficiency are usually the first victims in a unionised environment because people will always try to take advantage when they know their union will prevent them losing their job; period. Human nature. Folks always make comparisons to Singapore, but in Singapore their civil servants are often paid more than the private sector, often more qualified than the private sector and are more accountable and efficient than the private sector. When will this example be replicated in the Jamaican political experience? Is either party even capable, much less willing to apply these lessons; thus giving up power over people? I think not. If Jamaicans were strategic thinkers they would realize that the fastest way to get to where Singapore is now, would be to institute civil service examinations and remove life and death powers (getting a government job) from politicians and their hacks/cronies. This would lead to increased efficiency, decreased corruption, increased pay. Since the politicians would no longer control this area, they would have every incentive to improve it! Of course, we being like little kittens and colorful lights, we allow our emotional quotient to decrease our vision and we end up here i.e. not as far as we could be.