ARMS Ltd, the company which in recent months has become public enemy number one, has contracted a call centre to take spillover calls from its customer service department, its new CEO Wilfred Borg told The Sunday Times.
This was one of the initiatives the company was taking, he said, to make it more customer-oriented – though this required a change in mentality.
In the first interview since his five-year appointment last Thursday, Mr Borg said that although the situation had improved over the past few months, with measures introduced to provide a better service, a lot more had to be done.
The company, Automated Revenue Management Systems Ltd, was set up in January to provide accounting and billing services to Enemalta and the Water Services Corporation. Since its inception, ARMS has attracted a barrage of criticism for its inefficiency. The company was even criticised by the Prime Minister who urged it to apologise to clients.
The company was headed by a part-time chairman, Mark Muscat, who is the WSC’s chief executive. Now, the company has a full-time CEO to steer it through stormy waters, a task Mr Borg is not shying away from.
“I am used to swimming against the current. I am determined to do my very best to change the perception people have of ARMS and give people the good service they expect. I want to instil the mentality that the client should be the company’s focus. We have to learn from our mistakes,” he said.
“I would be presumptuous to say I have the solutions to all the problems. I am taking stock of the situation. This is a completely new line for me after 37 years with Air Malta but, like everyone, I read the papers and am aware of the criticism levelled at ARMS,” he said.
Mr Borg believes that although Mr Muscat was heading ARMS only on a part-time basis, he had introduced a number of measures to improve the service and it was “unfair” to describe the company as a headless chicken just because it did not have a full-time CEO.
“It’s not that there are no people or that everyone does not pull their weight. There was a marked improvement in the service, especially in the waiting times. Our mission is to continue improving this service and make ARMS a customer-oriented company.”
He said Mr Muscat had upgraded the reception area at the Luqa office and improved the queuing system by sectioning customers according to the service they required.
There are 19 customer counters at the Luqa office, more than the 15 that existed at the Luqa and Valletta offices. The number of call operators also increased from nine to 12 and the company has entered into an agreement with a call centre to take spillover calls from clients when its own call centre cannot cope with demand.
Although this call centre at present can only deal with a limited amount of complaints, in future it will have full access to the ARMS system.
He said ARMS saw to an average of 300 clients a day. In August, this load increased to 700 primarily because of problems with around 10,000 energy benefit cheques which were incorrect because of incorrect information about the clients.
“ARMS was clearly not able to cope with the demand when it peaked and this, along with higher electric tariffs, aggravated people’s perception of the company and it became very demoralising for its employees. The situation got out of hand.”
Mr Borg said although he was still taking stock of the situation, he would be looking into the possibility of creating a number of hubs at local councils – one for north, centre and south – where clients could go and to sort out their problems.
Moreover, ARMS was testing its new portal which he expected to be up and running by the beginning of next year. Through this portal, clients would be able to pay their bills and other services, such as changing the number of people living in a household and other account details. At the moment, customers who wish to do this must queue at ARMS’s customer care department.
Also early next year, ARMS will be moving to Gattard House in Blata l-Bajda, where it will run all its customer operations.
Mr Borg said the company operated with around 135 people – but some were employed directly, while others were employees of Enemalta and the WSC. He plans to set up a proper structure for all employees so that the company would be able to deal with the load and carry out the important back-office work when the demand was not so high.
Asked whether he was convinced he had made the right decision to leave Air Malta to head a company which had received so much negative publicity, Mr Borg said: “I was told to get ARMS right and that is exactly what I am determined to do.”
Before his appointment, ARMS was run by four managers whose salaries ranged between €29,419 and €38,219. All have a maximum communication expense allow-ance of €1,396, a health expenditure allowance of €466, a car allowance of €3,395 and a petrol allowance of €2,080.
All except the project manager had an expense allowance of €1,164.
Mr Borg refused to divulge his salary and questions sent to Finance Minister Tonio Fenech remained unanswered.
An internal report leaked to The Sunday Times last week revealed how 15,000 customers had not yet received a water and electricity bill from ARMS.