Poor customer care is a threat to the country’s economic competitiveness despite the current initiatives to inprove business standards.

Rwanda is ranked last in customer service quality within the region; an area the government believes needs priority attention.

John Mulford, the Director General of Rwanda Business Development Centre (RBDC) believes that pride among managers of companies that do not listen to their customer care staff and lack of consistency in service provision is behind the ranting habit.

"You need to have good systems in your business at the right time, with a right number of people and right tools to achieve quality customer care,” he said at a training workshop aimed at equipping middle-level managers of various companies with skills in leadership and customer care in Kigali yesterday.

John Gara, the Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda development Board, notes that customer care remains a top priority within the board since it could increase the country’s GDP by tens of millions of US dollars annually.

"We believe that poor customer care can be a major threat to Rwanda’s economic competitiveness, something everyone is working hard to achieve,” Gara said.

Mulford said that an increase in competition and training among company leaders would improve customer care services, adding that customers are likely to drive this factor if they insist on demanding on their requirements.

"Our short term strategy is to see how best we can change our position in terms of customer care service in the region to the top,” Apollo Munanura, Head of Division-Skills Development Human Capital and Institutional Development at RDB told Business Times yesterday.

Munanura noted that leadership poses a bigger challenge in attaining quality customer care services in many companies, adding that efforts to provide leadership training to middle-level managers in all companies have been stepped up.

Francis Ndayiziga, Branch Banking Division Leader at Urwego Opportunity bank says that training of managers in leadership skills will help turn around the image of customer care services in the banking sector.

The sector is noted for registering the highest number of poor customer care service.

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