Head of the Institute of Customer Service Professionals (ICSP), Yvonne Ohui Maccarthy, has said most Ghanaian businesses do not understand the underpinning issues of customer service.
Bringing the celebration of customer service week in the month of October to an end, Ms Yvonne explained that businesses in Ghana do not really understand and recognise the importance of customer service provision and just copy blindly from the developed countries.
Originating from the US, Customer Service Week celebration established and celebrated from 1984 to 1992 by the International Customer Service Association and later passed by Congress was proclaimed a weekly celebration every year.
Speaking in an interview on Joy News’ evening programme PM Express, monitored by Adomonline.com, she explained that, customer service is taking action to create value for someone and not service one receives before and after a purchase.
“Do things differently that genuinely address what the customer wants, every organisation is in to make money but it’s the customer that is the most important person in the chain. So you now have to sit to think and create value for them,” she said.
She described the practice of Ghanaian businesses showing appreciation to clients mostly during customer week service as poor.
“We have 52 weeks in the year, why thank me during customer service week, we’ve missed the point completely,” she said.
The ICSP in 2018 released the Ghana Customer Service index which studied and measured the level of customer service delivery in eight sectors of the economy.
According to the index report by ICSP, Ghana was ranked C in customer delivery service. Among the sectors studied were online businesses, retail, utility, hospitality and telecommunication companies.
In the study, sectors like the hospitality industry, run by foreigners, provided better customer service as compared to sectors like the public and the utility sector run by Ghanaians.
“Customer service in the country is poor because people are not given strict guidelines to work by, they are not trained to give excellent customer service to clients when employed. Organisations and businesses need to invest in customer service and employ the right people with the right mindset, attitude and skills set,” she added.