Rwanda is this week marking Customer Service Week with a call for companies to internally collaborate in an effort to serve their clients better.

Rwanda has had challenges with service delivery, prompting the government to invest in training and raising awareness on the importance of keeping customers happy.

And, as competition continues to grow within the private sector, companies are also making good customer service an integral part of their strategies.

One player that is putting companies and organisations on alert is social media. Most notably Twitter.

With the growth of the smartphone market and a generation connected Rwandans, social media is growing in popularity and users are now using the platform to complain or appreciate the service they get.

According to experts, this trend is only expected to increase as more Rwandans become active on different platforms.

Anais Mutesi, a businesswoman who deals in clothing, told The New Times that clients resort to posting complaints on social media because companies do not take their concerns seriously whenever they bring them forward.

"Whoever is not happy with the service from a given institution decides to share the issue with social media community as the only option for them to at least get the desired feedback,” Mutesi said explaining that once a complaint is raised on social media, they take it more seriously.

This, Mutesi added, has made social media influential in tackling bad service.

"The majority of complaints raised on social media had been addressed because companies want to protect their reputation,” she added.

Fiona Kamikazi Rutagengwa, one of the popular social media influencers in Rwanda, explains that the power of social media is in the ability to expose what is going on within a specific institution.

"Social media has helped a lot in service delivery because it keeps the concerned business and institutions in check. They don’t want to be exposed for bad service,” Kamikazi said, adding that from her experience, whenever she posts something especially on Twitter, it draws the attention of her 26.8k followers who tend to reaction and their engagement sparks the intervention of organisations or their stakeholders.

Ensuring excellent customer service requires Public Relations professionals to regularly monitor social media platforms to identify complaints, perceptions, and mentions and attend to them.

The Water and Sanitation Corporation (WASAC), Rwanda’s water provider is one of the institutions that receive numerous complaints on social media regarding the inconsistent flow of water to homes.

Richard Dan Iraguha, the Head of Public Relations and Communications at WASAC, told The New Times that, in the digital era, his institution does not wait for people to come to the office but rather uses social media to attend to concerns raised and respond to them right away.

For Iraguha, social media has reduced bureaucracy, making it faster for organisations to solve customer’s concerns.

"Companies do not only use social media to provide feedback to their customers, they also use the platforms to provide updates, changes, or announce new services/products,” Iraguha added.

He points out that the fact that Rwandans today publicly put out their complaints is proof that they know it is their right to have great service from providers.

And, for the institutions that offer great service, their customers will share their experiences, giving the institution or company a better image which then translates to new or repeat clients.

Fidèle Mutemberezi Ph.D., an economist, and lecturer at the University of Rwanda calls on service providers to use Customer Service Week to evaluate themselves about the quality of the service they give their customers.

"Service providers need to value their customers and be innovative. The growing competition in the business sector has created room for customers to shift from bad service providers to the companies that make them feel happier and more comfortable,” Mutemberezi said.

He emphasizes that the Customer Service Week should go beyond celebrating good relations between institutions and their customers but also take advantage of it and raise issues hindering good customer service so as to find room to improve.

Thierry Nshuti, the Head of Marketing at Bank of Kigali argues that Customer Service Week should not be any different from other days when it comes to delivering excellent service since a happy customer will return or recommend you.

"Good customer service is indeed all about emotions and when you’re not happy with it, you go find happiness elsewhere. Therefore, in this world of competition, we are well aware that companies risk losing customers in case they don’t serve them well, and serving our customers well should be routine if we are to build successful businesses,” Nshuti noted.

Rwanda is largely a service-based economy and to earn even more, clients will have to be happy with how they are treated.

According to the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), the service industry contributes the most to the national GDP with 45 percent compared to 28 percent and 19 percent shares for agriculture and industry respectively.