Too much ado about customer care

Ever since someone high in the echelons of power in Rwanda complained about lack of Customer care there have been frantic and at times uncoordinated efforts to be seen to be doing something about “Customer care” with one National Organization inviting bids from “qualified bidders” to compete for the tender to “teach” Rwandans customer care. Despite the enthusiasms many people would be hard pressed to define what exactly they expected to happen after people have been trained in Customer care. But what is Customer care? Customer care simply means the effort you put in to attend to the expectations of your Clients/customers and giving them more than what they expected. When someone takes the time and effort to come to you for a good and or service he knows what he/she wants and how you help him/her get it makes the difference. Customer care involves putting systems in place to maximise your customers’ satisfaction with your business– that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation. Customer care is a concept of how to treat people who take their time, effort and resources to come to you for a good or service. Customer care is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction. It is listening to your customer’s needs with empathy and then with knowledge, assisting your customer to a satisfactory resolution for her/him in a positive and friendly manner. It is treating the person who comes to you for a good or service as you yourself would like to be treated. It is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. Customer care is a major determinant of business success and in many cases may determine the sustainability of a business/commercial venture where survival in the field depends on the number of clients and sales made. It therefore goes without saying that customer care should be a prime consideration for every business - your sales, profitability and survival depends on keeping your customers happy and willing to come again. Every contact your customers have with your business should be an opportunity for you to improve your reputation with them, show why your organisation/business is better to do business with and why you are a step ahead of the others and therefore increase the likelihood of further sales. There are a range of factors that can contribute to customer satisfaction; the time it takes a customer to be served, how well your product or service matches the customer expectations, the value for money you offer, how easy to use your products are to use (customer friendliness of goods or services, your efficiency and reliability in fulfilling orders, the professionalism exhibited by Staff in receiving orders and delivering, friendliness and expertise of your employees, how well you keep your customers informed on new and existing products and of course the after-sales service you provide to your customers in terms of time taken to offer a service and quality of after-sales service. How customer complaints are responded to matters a lot –even when the customer is behaving irrationally the complaint should never be dismissed. Contradictory as it may seem, a customer with a complaint represents a genuine opportunity for your business because one complaining customer may represent several dissatisfied others who may be searching for new providers. Complaints should be handled courteously, with empathy and as quickly as they arise. There should be an established procedure for dealing with customer complaints known to all your employees. Listening to details of the complaint with sympathy and registering them to ensure a solution is found could come in handy. Customer surveys, feedback programmes and occasional phone calls to key customers can be useful ways of gauging how customer service levels in your business are and possible strategies should be made to maximize customer satisfaction. Though Customer care may be more directly important in some departments than others for example sales staff, receptionists and other employees in customer-facing roles, customer care should be a core value of every staff in of every department in an organisation because one employee’s fulfilling orders has a major impact on customers’ satisfaction with your business. Many Companies/Institutions have put in measures to establish how much their goods and service meet their clients’ satisfaction by use of Customer satisfaction indices (CSIs) otherwise called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Since Customer care comes in two forms; the automated customer care in the case of Interactive Websites and automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and the person to person customer care different KPIs should be developed to cater for the two with online options for clients to make the complaints or an instant electronic option where a client can press any of the buttons ranging from poor (dissatisfied), Good (satisfied) to Excellent (appreciated) in case of the former and printed forms that are filled in case of the latter. In case of many Rwandans it is not easy to establish the cause or extent of poor customer care. Is it lack of competition on part of service providers or the failure of clients to reject mediocrity and demand the best value for their money? What makes a commuter enter a Taxi when it is already full to capacity and why do other passengers not say no to the excess passenger? What makes people go the same restaurant day after day when the food that is served there drips with cooking oil? Why do tenants put up with a Landlord whose son blasts music all night so they stay awake all night? Why do buyers have to beg a trader so they can buy from him/her when she stands in doorway and says it is past time? Why do people continue suffering using a telephone company where one cannot call another because “the network is busy”? Whatever the case people do not need to be told to demand or offer customer care because it becomes part of business its time. Email: ekaba2002@yahoo.com