Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, launched the Abu Dhabi Program for Effortless Customer Experience to provide world-class, effortless customer experiences for everyone who interacts with Abu Dhabi Government.
Building on Abu Dhabi’s human-centric approach, the new model will enable everyone living and working in the emirate, as well as visitors, to carry out tasks from buying a home, to starting a business, or exploring the emirate, quickly, seamlessly, and effortlessly.
Saeed Al Mulla, Executive Director – Customer Experience Sector at Abu Dhabi Executive Office, said, “Launching this first-of-its-kind programme in the Middle East reflects our commitment to transforming customer experience across government and to becoming a leader in this exciting, growing field. Abu Dhabi Government has always put people at the heart of everything it does. The launch of the programme is an extension of those efforts, making it even easier for people – whether they live here or are visiting – to carry out every task quickly, conveniently, and effortlessly.”
The new model is benchmarked against international standards, including the first ever International Model for Customer Experience in Government, designed by the International Foundation for Customer Experience in Government (a non-profit organisation headquartered in Canada). This model is supported by 80 toolkits and case studies from 20 different countries.
The launch follows a successful pilot phase in three government entities, the Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT), the Department of Economic Development (DED), and the Department of Community Development (DCD), which streamlined customer experiences by almost 50 per cent on average, enabling quicker completion times and fewer touchpoints. The launch also follows an extensive and full maturity review at a whole-of-government level to assess current customer experience performance and set suitable targets for the future.
The Abu Dhabi model uses a holistic and collaborative approach to address the entire customer experience holistically across four dimensions: direction, design, development and delivery.
The programme also includes five strategic thrusts: Customer Experience Policy and Guidebook – outlining roles and setting service delivery standards; Priority setting – prioritising services for improvement to concentrate efforts and resources; Design lab – establishing a bespoke design lab in collaboration with best-in-class partners; Capability building – developing customer experience agents’ capabilities to enable them to provide world-class customer experiences; and Measurement – establishing a pioneering measurement model with a focus on the customer effort index.
