In its sustained efforts to redefine grievance redressal at pre-litigation stage, Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) has launched a Capacity Building Program for its Associates at National Consumer Helpline this year. The Capacity Building Program constitutes a series of specialized upskilling initiatives designed for the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) associates and aims to enhance the skills and knowledge of NCH associates, empowering them to effectively address consumer grievances and provide comprehensive support through the helpline. As part of the Department’s broader efforts, this initiative seeks to strengthen the capacity of personnel involved in consumer grievance redressal, ensuring that consumers receive the highest quality of service and support.

In this endeavor, the Department associated with Amazon India to organize a specialized training for handling customer grievances to associates of the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) on 11^th December,2024. The associates underwent an intensive 40-hour training program focused on developing soft skills, professional outlooks and essential customer service behaviors. Upon completion of the Capacity Building Program, participants will receive a joint certification from the Department of Consumer Affairs and Amazon India. This certification recognizes their enhanced skills and knowledge in consumer grievance redressal, further empowering them to provide superior support through the National Consumer Helpline. The training will be provided to over 80 associates including the associates to handle calls from all over the country in 17 languages (i.e. Hindi, English, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Nepali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Maithali, Santhali, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Manipuri) and currently manage the National Consumer Helpline.

Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Nidhi Khare, Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India said, “The government remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding and safeguarding consumer rights. Towards this, the right to have grievances heard and addressed is essential for fostering accountability, transparency, and fairness. The training imparted by Amazon India is aimed at enhancing the performance of the Helpline and is as part of capacity building program and ongoing efforts towards strengthening the National Consumer Helpline (NHC) setup, which receives more than one lakh complaints every month. Regular training of NCH associates will help improve their communication skills towards addressing consumer complaints effectively and will enable a seamless dispute redressal experience for the consumers.”

Ms.Susan Pointer, VP, International Public Policy, Amazon revealed that “At Amazon, customer obsession is at the core of everything we do. We believe the future of e-commerce growth depends on empowering and educating consumers We aim to share best practices with the Department of Consumer Affairs, supporting the important goal of strengthening customer grievance redressal. This will help build trust, enabling more shoppers to confidently embrace online shopping.”

Additionally, DoCA in association with National Law University, Delhi had organized One-Day Capacity Building Programme for Associates of National Consumer Helpline (NCH), on November 30, 2024 at NLUD Campus in Dwarka, New Delhi.  Each Training Program is followed up by Training Outcome Assessment to assess the performance of the NCH Associates.  Out of the four sessions, two were specifically dedicated to the issues related to the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. These sessions covered a broad spectrum of contemporary consumer centric issues faced by the consumers such as misleading advertisements, e-commerce, quick commerce, dark patterns, greenwashing, health washing, and surrogate advertisements. The goal of these sessions was to equip associates with the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively handle consumer grievances arising from these concerns.

The Capacity Building Program, along with the transformative changes and technological upgrades of the National Consumer Helpline (NCH), will pave the way for NCH to emerge as a single point of access for consumers across the country, offering effective grievance redressal at the pre-litigation stage.

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