Deluge of complaints clog ministry work

JEDDAH: The Ministry of Commerce and Investment called on all businesses to create customer service centers in order to address some of the complaints that do not require the ministry’s intervention in view of the fact that 271,000 consumer complaints have been lodged so far this year.
The ministry addressed 98.6 percent of those complaints, but it still has to go through almost 2,800 more, according to a ministry source who said that some of the complaints submitted to the ministry could have been addressed by the business against which the complaint was lodged, but the weak culture of customer service and officials of these companies and other institutions compound the problem, which makes it incumbent on the ministry to intervene.
Fahad Al-Huthaili, assistant undersecretary for consumer protection at the ministry, told local media that the number of complaints that were addressed during the current year reached 268,190 complaints.
“Traders’ awareness is one of the ministry’s priority projects. Several workshops will be held soon to acquaint them with systems and to discuss the most prominent problems and challenges faced by traders in various sectors,” he said.
Al-Huthaili added that the workshops will emphasize the need to strengthen the role of traders in educating consumers and to activate customer service centers at dealers’ and traders’ companies.
“The ministry asked that businesses dedicate liaison officers to receive complaints and to communicate directly with the consumer,” said Al-Huthaili.
He also said that “this step is bound to achieve good results because the ministry wants to speed up the resolution of problems mentioned in the complaints.”
The ministry encouraged communication with the public in recent years, dedicating all means of communication to receiving reports: hotline, website and Twitter account.
The ministry’s Twitter account receives numerous complaints on daily basis; they are dealt with by field teams, but some of these complaints do not necessitate the intervention of the ministry and could be addressed by officials from the entities against which complaints are being made, he said.