Accra, Dec 19, - The Institute of
Customer Service Professionals (ICSP) on Tuesday launched the Ghana Customer
Service Index to provide an insight about the state of customer service in the
country towards adopting positive customer relations.
The index will be a yearly report
published in the first week of October and focused on a three component
approach - research, traditional surveys and online surveys - as a basis to
measure the performance of businesses vis-a-vis their customer relations.
Ms Yvonne Ohui McCarthy, the
President of ICSP, said the index would focus on eight key sectors: Financial institutions, utilities,
telecommunications, hospitality, healthcare, retail food and non-food, public
institutions and online businesses.
She said the Index would also
determine the “degree of satisfaction” of customers who patronised the services
of companies both private and public.
Customers, she said, would be
asked to rate their experiences of dealing with the selected sectors but each
customer could rate only one organisation per sector.
She said the metrics and
indicative areas would reflect the priorities customers had identified as the
most important attribute of customer experience.
“Customer’s would rate the
sectors and some organizations on a scale of 1-10 using the following metrics:
Look and feel, competence, professionalism, ease of doing business, processes
and procedures, customer-focused innovations, staff engagement, feedback and
complaints”, she added.
Ms McCarthy explained that trends
and findings would be highlighted in the report together with the general
information regarding customer service and its impact on the country in the
particular year.
She said there would be naming
and shaming of individuals and companies who performed poorly in customer care
service in the newspapers.
She noted that the current state
of Customer Service in the country was appalling and left much to be desired
because there was no seriousness in the efforts made by both government and
regulatory bodies to protect customers’ interests.
The Institute also outdoored the
Ghana Service Excellence Awards, which would be held in the last week of
October each year.
She said every May nominations
would be opened to organisations and individuals who wished to submit their
names for the different award categories, with the submission window closing in
June.
Ms McCarthy said once the
applications had been received, a series of evaluations would be done by a
technical committee made up customer service professionals, industry experts
and heads of some of the various sectors.
Mr Kojo Frempong, Head of
Programming at the Ministry of Business Development, said for the Government to
reach its objective of making Ghana the most friendly business environment and
a hub in West Africa, it was important to put customers central to achieving
that agenda.
He said it was part of President
Akufo-Addo’s new Ghana dream of seeing Ghanaian business thrive successfully to
fast track job creation, that the Ministry was created.
Mr Frempong said in achieving the
President’s dream it was important for businesses to acknowledge the importance
of providing quality customer service to aid in their expansion, adding that,
the customer should be seen as a king.
“Everything the President dreams
of and is actively working towards will potentially be impeded without the
right customer approach,” he said.
He, therefore, encouraged the
ICSP and urged them to be radical in their approach to improving the quality of
customer service in the business industry.
GNA
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