"The land of a thousand hills and a million smiles” is what Rwanda is commonly called—referring to its unique hilly terrain and friendly populace.

Unfortunately, the "million smiles” is not adequately reflected in businesses. 

   Everybody; be it visitors to Rwanda or natives themselves admit there is still big room for improvement in as far as customer service is concerned. 
  
Rwanda aims at being a service-based economy putting emphasis on providing high-end products and services copying Singapore and South Korea as economic growth models.

But if no serious action is taken against poor customer service among both public and private institutions in Rwanda, this dream may never come true.

The funny bit is everybody talks ill about it—including those that fall short on good customer service—meaning it is disgusting to everyone in society.

You’ll hear all sorts of narrations about how Rwandans are poor at customer service.

Stories like how businessmen open and close at hours that please them (other than their esteemed customers); how businessmen fall short on selling etiquettes among many others.  

Enhancing good and competitive customer service will involve changing peoples’ cultural values and attitudes to modern times; something that needs to be done over a long period of time.

The Private Sector Federation (PSF)-Rwanda, the umbrella organisation of all private businesses in Rwanda, intends to start a long-term customer care campaign.

It has taken the issue so serious to an extent that it has hired a consultancy to work with its member service and communication department to develop a PSF customer care campaign strategy.

The PSF invited partner institutions; Rwanda Investment and Export Promotion Agency, CEDP/World Bank and Kigali City Council to a preliminary presentation of the campaign.

The meeting was well attended by PSF directors of departments and chambers, and top leadership including; Robert Bayigamba the federation chairman, Faustin Mbundu the vice chairman and Emmanuel Hategeka, the Secretary General. 

The consultant carried out a research in which it was concluded that there are very poor levels of customer care in Rwanda that is attributed to lack of awareness of its importance.

Diagnosing the problem, the consultant said it is everywhere; in all sectors (public and private), at all levels (managerial, employees and employers).

The major cause of poor customer care in Rwanda, according to the consultant is negative attitude towards work.

The SWOT analysis however indicates that Rwanda being a nation with one nation with one culture; young and competitive population; eager to learn and responsive will perhaps make it easy to change people’s attitude towards work.

The research however further indicates that the large rural population and weak professional base pose great challenge to the campaign.

In his remarks, the federation SG said the campaign will be long-term—”two years or even more”.

He said the campaign would be rolled-out in three phases: diagnosing the problem; encouraging good customer care (Go Extra Mile for Customer—GEMC campaign); and encouraging service excellence.

He said the whole campaign would take about two years.

That it (campaign) will be a nationwide campaign, popularised through selected channels of media –including; TV, radio, print media and outdoor publicity to reach out to all people of Rwanda. 

  He assured that the campaign would be launched before the end of this year and would be communicated in Kinyarwanda, English and French.

On his part, the chairman of PSF Bayigamba proposed to the consultant that: ‘in all forms of communication, he should illustrate to public both sides—poor customer service and what people should do.

He also proposed that companies should be encouraged to capture good customer care in their corporate strategies, visions and missions.

Mbundu asked the consultant to devise an evaluation mechanism to assess progress over time.

"We intend to select a test group of ten businesses to study how good customer care impact on their sales over time during the campaign,” PSF SG responded.

Rosemary Mbabazi who represented Riepa pledged partnership in the campaign, saying: "private sector members are our (Rieapa) clients as well”. She suggested that training should be emphasised, "not only to businessmen but also to institutions of higher leaning”. "The airport is the gateway to Rwanda. All businesses that relate to the airport should be sensitised on customer care”, she further proposed.

As the federation motto states: "Beyond Advocacy”, the SG finally said: "We are looking at enhancing competitiveness of businesses in Rwanda besides advocating for their interests.  

He said a comprehensive campaign with a detailed budget and concrete strategy would soon be presented to PSF Board for endorsing.

"We also intend to bring other partners on board in terms of financial support,” he hinted.

Ends