Customer is King! The whole world seems to agree hence the international celebration of customer service week which is now upon us. However, if you see some of the companies in Zimbabwe celebrating Customer Service Week, you’ll probably laugh with me!
Customer service week is meant to celebrate the hard working employees that serve and support customers on a daily basis. This celebration is meant to boost their morale which in turn makes them continue the worthwhile and important work of serving customers while raising awareness on the importance of customer service.
How It Started
It started in 1991 in the US and was made a national day in 1992. As more countries began acknowledging the the importance of customer service, it has since become an international celebration. This year’s theme is “The Power of Service.”
Customer Service Week in Zimbabwe
Companies in Zimbabwe have taken to their various media accounts to express their heartfelt gratitude to their beloved customers. Hold on while I try and suppress my laugh..
For instance, the internet service provider ZOL is giving away grocery vouchers worth $7500. TelOne, who are boasting that “Client Centricity is one of our core values” have sent out their Managing Director, Chipo Mutasa, to handle customer service personally. Someone to finally get the job done…just for this week. Econet and Steward Bank were kind enough to post a “we appreciate you” message on their social platforms. They are probably still very busy working tirelessly to assist you on your problems.
Customer Service Week outside Zimbabwe
Kenya’s internet service provider, Safricom, not only appreciated their customers with free airtime at their various Safricom Shops, but went even further to appreciate their call centre staff with small tokens of appreciation like umbrellas. The KCB Bank of Uganda also celebrated their customers and their employees. Employees were gifted with t shirts among other small tokens.
Since this year’s theme is “The Power of Service”…
Exactly how much power does service have?
Research conducted by the business analysts, Experiences Investigators, proved the importance of a simply welcoming greeting. They conducted the research on various thriving businesses that were losing return customers. The business owners wanted to get to the bottom of the matter. Guess what the changes they were asked to implement in their business were? The staff was retrained and taught to greet customers a smile, reasonable eye contact.
The results on this change is shown in the table below:
What a difference a smile makes. With that much customer retention the employees certainly ought to be celebrated.
Having highlighted all these facts about the day and customer service, could we rightly say that every company deserves to celebrate this day?
In the case of Zimbabwe, how often have you walked into a store a either
- were paid not attention to or
- followed around in an uncomfortable way, or worst case scenario
- been looked at from head to toe first before being assisted?
This is not to say everyone who deals with customers in Zimbabwe is this way but this certainly happens too often.
Customer representatives who display the aforementioned behaviours seem to judge the customer’s earning capacity first then if they think the customer has money they are likely to smile at them and provide them with proper services.
Such a shame that companies are losing customers because of something that can easily be changed. Remember when one of the richest black women in the world, Oprah Winfrey was judged because of the colour of the skin and was barred from seeing the US$38 000 handbag she wanted so badly in Italy? The issue was later resolved when they recognised who she was and they apologised. But guess what? Oprah walked out of that store empty handed just because of the way she was treated. Imagine how many more customers the store must have lost after the story was publicised! All because of poor customer service.
Some Zimbabweans on social media have shared comments based on the bad customer service they have received from organisations in Zimbabwe.
View some of the sentiments below:
Having seen the importance of customer service and the stark differences between how it should be done and how it is being done, I would say many Zimbabwean companies ought to fix their customer service first before they begin celebrating anything!
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