Chennai Jan 27 :  Customer care is the latest 'mantra' of the Postal department.  To sensitise its officials, the department has taken up a set of measures.

Every Sunday, orientation programmes are held for counter staff, postmasters and superintendents.  In the beginning, officials of the Chennai Central Division were given training.  "Gradually, we plan to cover officials of other divisions in the city"' according to Dr U Srinivasa Raghavan, Chief Post Master General of Tamilnadu Circle.  For this purpose, the services of PR professionals are made use of. 

Besides, two officials of the department's customer care centre have been contacting 25 persons chosen on a random basis every day to get feedback on the quality of service, areas of improvement, and complaints, if any.  "The response has been encouraging", Dr Srinivasaraghavan says, adding that the department began this exercise two weeks ago.

Though firms and corporate institutions are also contacted, the officials' concentration for the interaction has been on individuals, who are selected after browsing the telephone directory.

So far, the approach of the customer care centre was re-active, responding to complaints or grievances that were received by the department.  "We want to change this and make it pro-active", the CPMG says.

Recently, a customer care audit (image audit) on T. Nagar head post office was carried out by an external agency.

The findings were not only followed up at the post office concerned but they have also been circulated to other post offices.