National Coordinator of IPRA in Qatar, Jassem Ibrahim Fakhroo, handing over the golden award to Abdulla Saad Al Saad, Public Relations and Communications Manager at Ashghal.
Doha: The Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has bagged the Golden Award for Excellence in Public Relations for Consumer PR for an existing service from the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), for its Customer Service Excellence Programme, making Qatar the only Arab country to win this award in 2021.
The National Coordinator of IPRA in Qatar, Jassem Ibrahim Fakhroo handed over the golden award to Abdulla Saad Al Saad, Public Relations and Communications Manager at Ashghal.
Ashghal has bagged this prestigious award among 93 winners from all over the world under several categories. Winners in the same category include Romania, Britain, China and Hungary.
On this occasion, Public Relations and Communications Manager at Ashghal, Abdulla Saad Al Saad commented: “With huge increase in the number of our customers and partners over past years, our means of communication with public expanded through many channels. Now customers are able to utilise these channels to apply for our services, communicate with us and provide comments or inquiries quickly and easily.”
Regarding development of systems, Information Systems Department Manager at Ashghal, Abeer Faleh Al Hajri said, “We place customer satisfaction at the top of our priorities. We update all programs and systems that help us in facilitating communication with public, and we constantly strive towards developing the form and content of our electronic channels, introducing them to the public and achieving a better electronic experience.”
Ashghal has implemented ‘Customer Service Excellence Program’ to monitor all customer feedback and evaluate performance of the team concerned. This is an ongoing program designed to place Ashghal within the platform of the best customer service entity in Qatar and the region. It also aims to implement best practices in government service excellence, besides achieving enhanced customer satisfaction in applying Ashghal’s strategic value of ‘service oriented’.
National Coordinator of IPRA in Qatar, Jassem Ibrahim Fakhroo, expressed his pleasure for Ashghal winning the Golden Award for Excellence in the category of ‘Consumer PR for an existing service’, saying that this achievement has raised Qatar’s name on the global map of public relations, where Ashghal is considered to be the first Qatari entity to win this award. The award is held annually by IPRA with the wide participation of public relations institutions from different states across the world.
He explained that Ashghal was able to pass the various stages of evaluation, meeting all conditions set to win, such as requirement to complete the public relations program before start date of the annual competition, where awards in 37 categories are awarded to outstanding institutions in this field, from the public and private sectors. This is implemented as per carefully developed international standards, and through a professional, independent and impartial jury.
Secretary General of IPRA – Britain, Philip Sheppard commented that Ashghal has emerged through its outstanding contribution within an extremely competitive category, which is Consumer PR for an Existing Service. Ashghal has demonstrated creativity and inspiration in the way the customer service program is crafted, we have never had a Qatari winner in this category.”
The IPRA Golden World Awards initiative, established in 1990, recognises excellence in public relations practice worldwide in a wide variety of categories. The awards are celebrated annually for outstanding achievements.
