Servizz.gov received 93,000 calls in one month on its freephone, 153, during the Covid-19 outbreak, Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar said.

He was addressing a press conference this morning on the services offered by the servizz.gov agency against the backdrop of the Covid-19 situation.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of Servizz.gov and there has been a massive increase in the number of calls that its 153 freephone. In 2015, it was only receiving 2,000 calls which does not compare to what they are experiencing nowadays.

Cutajar said that the 153 freephone has 93,000 calls per month and that only a third of the calls that the helpline has received relate to Covid-19, which means that over 60,000 calls concern other areas.

Servizz.gov Chief Executive Officer Winston Pirotta explained that when it comes to calls relating to Covid-19, 600 called with regards to services for persons with disability, 3,500 called about employment benefits, 5,000 for parenting benefits and 6,000 others had generic questions. These numbers exclude those who were satisfied using only the automated call services prior to speaking with an agent.

HE said that there are 83 agents working with the 153 helpline, however, 20 of them had to be transferred to the helpline 111 due to Covid-19. Nonetheless, the delivery of services did not dwindle; the only difference was the waiting time as it went from 2 minutes to 13 minutes.

Cutajar added that there was also a considerable increase of 32% of people accessing the Servizz.gov website, amounting to around 124,000 people.

“This shows that the seeds we planted through our investments on our structural development and the Servizz.gov  website are starting to blossom,” Cutajar said.

As from today, Servizz.gov will also be adding a chatbot to the website. This is a pilot project that will focus on answering queries about Covid-19.