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The 1823 Citizen's Easy Link (CEL) of the Integrated Call Centre (ICC) received the one-millionth call during Christmas. Among the total number of callers making use of ICC services as a whole, the number of callers who made use of the 1823 CEL has seen a twofold percentage increase since its early days of operation.
A spokesman for the Efficiency Unit said today (December 27) that besides the 1823 CEL, the ICC was handling calls for 48 hotlines of 14 government departments and two ad hoc service items. The callers could either solicit information from the Customer Service Officers manning these hotlines or lodge complaints. The Customer Service Officers have been well-trained and thoroughly briefed from time to time. The ICC operates around the clock.
Each of the 48 hotlines is receiving on average about 3,000 calls per month, while the 1823 CEL alone is handling about 50,000 calls per month. The percentage of calls handled by the 1823 CEL has also grown rapidly, from 11% of the total calls received by the ICC in 2003 to 23% in 2005. ¡°This has served to prove the growing acceptance of the 1823 CEL. But we would certainly not be complacent,¡± the spokesman said.
"While we could not with our limited resources spend lavishly on advertising in order to promote the 1823 CEL, we would do our utmost to provide a customer-based and oriented service to the satisfaction of our users. Building on that, we hope that more people would become aware of the service and make use of it when necessary," he added.
As a whole, the calls handled by the ICC have also seen a tremendous increase, from 20,000 calls per month in its early days (set up in October 2002) to the monthly 200,000 calls at present. It has also provided hotline services for the WTO Ministerial Conference recently held in Hong Kong.
The 1823 CEL handled its one-millionth call on Christmas eve (December 24); and the ICC earlier handled the five-millionth call on August 18 this year.
Regarding the number of participating departments having their hotlines handled by the ICC, the Company Registry has newly joined as the 14th department in December. The Lands Department will join next year. The ICC is also working with a number of other departments to explore the possibility of expanding its service further. ¡°It has been our aim to invite more departments to join as an on-going process," the spokesman added.
Ends/Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Issued at HKT 14:00
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