Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Managing Director and CEO of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, DEWA, said the authority has undertaken a set of precautionary measures to protect its staff, customers, and all stakeholders from infectious diseases.

“Our wise leadership is intent on ensuring the safety and health and all Dubai Government employees, as well as society. We now have more than 6,000 employees working from home. We urge employees to be responsible in the current conditions and follow instructions to stay home for as long as possible. We also call on our customers to complete their transactions through our smart channels. DEWA provides all its services through the smart application and website to enable customers to complete all their transactions anytime and anywhere, to save time and effort,” Al Tayer said.

The number of smart transactions totalled over 2.2 million transactions during the first quarter of 2020. Smart adaptation was 95 percent in March 2020 and is expected to be 100 percent during the next period. DEWA has launched a campaign asking customers to use its smart channels to complete their transactions. It also encourages them to reduce their visits to Customer Happiness Centres unless it is an emergency. The channels are: DEWA’s website provides a seamless and unique experience to users that enables them to access all its services, information, and transactions, including paying bills, activating, transferring, or deactivating electricity and water services, electric vehicle Green Charger services, and many others.

DEWA’s smart application provides an innovative concept in providing services on the homepage, reducing the hassle of searching and browsing.

DEWA provides several options for the flexible payment of bills, including Smart Dubai’s Dubai Now app, Apply Pay, Etisalat Public Payment machines, Tayseer, and bills payment by using a reference number, via Emirates NBD’s cheque deposit machine. Customers can also pay their bills through the smart channels of their banks.

The Dubai Now application, launched by Smart Dubai, accelerates the digital transformation of Dubai by integrating the smart services of government organisations.

DEWA is the first government organisation in the UAE to verify its account on WhatsApp Business. The new feature uses AI to respond to customer enquiries through Rammas, DEWA’s virtual employee. Customers can communicate with the DEWA around the clock through the WhatsApp number (046019999).

Rammas responds in English and Arabic. It is available round the clock on seven channels, including the DEWA’s smart application (iOS and Android), website, Facebook page, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, robots, and WhatsApp Business.

DEWA also launched the Smart Response Service for electricity and water technical notifications. The service includes several features, such as self-diagnosis for technical interruptions at homes and reducing the steps for handling notifications and follow-up on them, through the smart application and website.

The authority has also launched Ash’ir for a live chat in sign language, which enables people with hearing difficulties to directly communicate with the call centre staff via video chat using sign language around the clock. DEWA also provides the Hayak written and visual communication service through its website. It enables written chat and video call options for direct communication with customer care centres around the clock.

For its employees, the authority has provided them with devices, including laptops, smart tablets and other needed systems and programmes that are ready to support the remote working process.