How the government of Ras Al Khaimah reduced IT costs by 13.7% with Sinch Contact Pro

As one of the seven emirates forming the United Arab Emirates, Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) is committed to modernizing its government services. This commitment has gained new momentum with the UAE’s 2024 Zero Government Bureaucracy Program, which aims to enhance service efficiency across all emirates.

For RAK, this means transforming how citizens access different services, like e.g. municipal, legal or prosecution services. Previously, citizens had to physically visit government offices for many services, while digital communications were fragmented across different channels – with separate systems for emails, phone calls, and messages.

COVID-19 initially drove the push toward digital services and reducing in-person visits. Since then, the emirate has experienced significant growth in both population and business activity, creating an even greater need for efficient digital solutions.

With the long-lasting partner con4PAS, Ras Al Khaimah was able to bring this business goal into real life in several weeks.

The solution was to implement Sinch Contact Pro which seamlessly integrates with the state-of-the-art  SAP S/4 HANA back-office solution hosted in the private cloud. This integration has created a unified platform where staff can manage all citizen communications efficiently and effectively.

Now, whether a citizen calls, emails, or sends a message, their communication is handled through a single, streamlined system. For example, the RAK public prosecution department manages approximately 8,900 calls and 7,300 email messages monthly, with both channels showing healthy growth (3.7% for calls, 4.5% for emails) as more citizens embrace digital services.

“Sinch is a solid partner, providing a solution that is easy to implement and even more importantly easy to maintain,” says Max Smulowicz, Systems Development Department Director, RAK Electronic Government Authority. “Our decision to implement Sinch, which handles sensitive legal matters, shows our strong confidence in it for the future enhancement.”

The impact of the new contact center has been significant:

• Call abandon rates dropped by 12.8% as staff can handle inquiries more efficiently
• Training time for new staff reduced from 3 days to 1 day, thanks to the intuitive unified system
• 11.4% reduction in required staff, with team members reassigned to other valuable tasks
• 13.7% decrease in IT maintenance costs due to having one integrated system instead of multiple platforms

The new system has transformed the way how the RAK’s departments operate. Staff can now:

• See a citizen’s complete communication history in one place
• Respond to inquiries faster with all information readily available
• Handle more cases with fewer resources
• Provide consistent service quality across all communication channels

The new system has delivered exactly what RAK needed – helping service agents save time while dealing with requests and shortening call handling times. Staff can now capture, manage, and respond to any inbound and outbound communication in real time, bringing citizens a more consistent service experience.

Looking ahead, RAK plans to enhance the current systems with more features and onboard more departmentss. These expansions will help create a consistent digital experience for all government services in the emirate, making it easier for citizens to interact with their government.

The success of RAK’s deployment shows how government services can be transformed through thoughtful digitalization, creating a model for other government entities looking to modernize their citizen services.