To improve the quality of services and handle public’s queries regarding social and health insurance, thus winning satisfaction of people and businesses, a delegation of the Vietnam Social Security (VSS) led by Deputy Director General Dao Viet Anh made a working visit to the Republic of Korea to exchange experience with Korean social security agencies - the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (COMWEL) and the National Pension Service (NPS) – on the organisation, management and operation of  Call Centres.

VSS delegations at a working session with the COMWEL’s call centre (Source: VSS)

During working sessions, experts from the COMWEL and the NPS, the Vietnamese officials were briefed on the establishment, development, organisation, management and operation of the call centres to the Vietnamese officials. They also made field trips to the call centres.

The call centres of the COMWEL and the NPS have similar organizational models. The COMWEL’s call centre has three branches with 380 staff members, while the NPS’s Call centre has five branches with 368 operators. Most operators are leased from personnel supply companies. Therefore, before embarking on the job, they would take a training course, which lasts for one month in the COMWEL and six months in the NPS, during which they will be guided how to respond to customers’ concerns and use software. Staffs of the Call centres of the COMWEL and the NPS are divided into two groups; with one group comprising hired workers who are in charged of fielding simple questions of clients, and the other gathering COMWEL and NPS experts who deal with complicated and in-depth questions.

The Call centres use the Auto Reply System (ARS), which helps to receive, classify and forward coming calls to telephone operators if the calls are made during working hours (from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., from Monday to Friday). If the calls are made outside office hours, the system will record questions and information of customers and forward to telephone operators the next day.

The centres also receive and answer questions via the Internet (Homebase page of the RoK). They not only deal with concerns regarding policies but also process a number of basic public services.

Vietnamese delegations visit the call centre of the NPS (Source: VSS)

In particular, the Call centre of the NPS is equipped with software that supports telephone operators in managing and searching for information about policies and customers, which help improve the quality of consultations.  

According to NPS experts, a telephone operator now receives and answers an average of 120 calls per day. Therefore, in order to reduce pressure for telephone operators, NPS will upgrade and develop applications using artificial intelligence (AI) that can answer frequently asked questions, called AI Chatbot. In addition, NPS will gradually replace telephone operators who are leased from other companies with its own staff members in order to offer better treatment policies and higher payment, thus reducing job quitting due to high pressure at work.

Besides the counselling section, the Call centres of COMWEL and NPS also have a section specialising in staff monitoring, assessment, and training. This section will monitor counselling activities of telephone operators to evaluate and grade them. Thus, under-qualified employees will be found out and receive additional training, while excellent workers will be rewarded.

The monitoring and assessment of counsellors also serve as a foundation for COMWEL and NPS to decide whether to continue or terminate contracts with human resource companies.

In his remarks at the end of the working sessions, VSS Deputy Director General Dao Viet Anh thanked leaders and experts of COMWEL and NPS for creating optimal conditions for the delegation to study their experiences and tour the call centres. Anh affirmed that the experiences and documents shared by COMWEL and NPS are very helpful for the development of VSS’ Customer Service Centre.

Vietnamese delegations and NPS leaders pose for a group photo (Source: VSS)

The VSS Deputy Director General also expressed his hope that COMWEL and NPS with continue their cooperation with the VSS through providing technical support and sending experts to help the VSS complete and develop a Customer Service Centre, thus bringing satisfaction to citizens and businesses.

Also, during the working session VSS delegations reached agreement on a number of cooperation contents in the coming time with NPS leaders. Accordingly, the two sides agreed on sending staff members and experts to participate in training programmes and workshops, implementing the memorandum of understanding between VSS and NPS signed in 2017 and making preparations for the implementation of an Agreement on Social security between Vietnam and Korea immediately after the signing.

International Cooperation Department