License fee dept. at IBA becomes ‘customer service'

Broadcasting Authority attempts to become more user-friendly by giving better service.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
IBA 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
IBA 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
As the Israel Broadcasting Authority moves ever closer to implementing its reforms, it is becoming acutely aware that to compete with commercial broadcasting outlets, it has to become more user-friendly by giving better service.
This includes changing the name of License Fee Department to Customer Service Department.
“It’s more than a matter of semantics,” said IBA chairman Amir Gilat, the leading proponent for the name change.
Gilat told the IBA plenum on Monday that in line with the upcoming reforms, the IBA had to adopt a new attitude, namely that the role of the department is to provide services to those who pay the license fee.
This includes a telephone service through which the public can receive information about many aspects of the IBA, not just answers to license fee queries.
“We have to deal with the public as if each person is a client,” said Gilat.
Aware that not everyone is inclined to relate to an anonymous voice at the other end of a phone line, Gilat said there would be three service centers where the public could come to check out program schedules, make complaints or pay or make queries about their license fees.