In line with its Continual Improvement Program, the Policy Coordination and Monitoring Division (PCMD) of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD) spearheaded the conduct of the virtual trainings on Documented Information Control (DIC) and Customer Satisfaction Management (CSM).
The two-part training on DIC held on October 20 and 27, 2021 was participated by 58 PCAARRD staff members composed of the Council’s DIC Team, Quality Management System Process (QMSP) Team, and other staff concerned in managing PCAARRD’s documented information.
The activity aimed to equip the participants with knowledge and skills in maintaining an effective in-house DIC system, which includes communication, sharing, dissemination, and preservation of the agency’s documented information.
To achieve the objectives, Consultant Leandro Lorenzo G. Bautista lectured on the importance of controlling QMS documents, the ISO 9001:2015 document control requirements, and paperless electronic document control.
After the activity, Ms. Evelyn B. Milante, a training participant, shared that the activity was effective and valuable, commended Bautista as an excellent resource speaker.
On the other hand, the training on CSM held on November 23, 2021 was attended by 67 PCAARRD regular and non-regular employees with Ms. Maria Avelet A. Bautista as the resource speaker. It aimed to provide participants an appreciation of the why’s and how’s of managing customer satisfaction feedback (CSF) in the PCAARRD setting.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Melvin B. Carlos, PCAARRD Deputy Executive Director (DED) for Administration, Resource Management and Support Services (ARMSS) highlighted customer satisfaction as the main goal of the Council’s quality management system (QMS). He further emphasized that it is not a sole responsibility of one person or group but of the entire organization; thus, the significance of the webinar. 
Dr. Lilian G. Bondoc, PCAARRD’s Quality Management Representative (QMR) and Director of the Policy Coordination and Monitoring Division (PCMD), presented the Council’s documented process on Customer Satisfaction Management considering the different internal and external services offered by PCAARRD. Ms. Azel Glory C. Banganan, Science Research Specialist II, also provided an orientation of the PCAARRD’s Customer Satisfaction Feedback Information System (CSF-IS), an online system that aims to aid real time monitoring of the Council’s CSF for its various internal and external services.
Bautista started the main session with the relevance of customer service. Through lectures, she discussed what customer service personnel must know, ways of addressing customer needs, service breakdown recovery, and ways to address customer personalities. To enhance the participants’ appreciation of the CSM concepts and principles discussed, group exercises such as role-playing (customer with service provider) and organizational breakdown and recovery (i.e customer problem identification and resolution) were conducted in breakout rooms. After which, workshop outputs were shared by respective group representatives.
According to the participants, significant takeaways from the training included empathy among customers, excellent verbal and non-verbal communication skills, and putting one’s heart in serving customers. Kristine Joy A. Buenaobra, one of the participants, expressed her gratitude in attending the webinar saying that the activity encouraged her to remove the notion that government employees are “masungit.” She emphasized that public servants like herself should provide good customer service.
Both capability building activities supported the Council’s commitment to achieving an excellent QMS. Similar initiatives are in the pipeline to ensure PCAARRD’s continuous delivery of quality services (Azel Glory C. Banganan, Rowena A. Parducho, DOST-PCAARRD S&T Media Services).