Customer service key to business survival
A book aimed at shedding more light on the need to improve customer service in the service industry has been launched.
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Titled ‘Customer Service Essentials’, and authored by Professor Robert Ebo Hinson, the book highlights some principles and case studies relevant to handling customer service related issues.
Professor Hinson, in an interview after the launch, said his passion to provide a remedy to the issue of customer service, which has become a canker in the African setting, made him write the book with eight chapters.
“Travelling across the continent with bad experiences, somebody had to step up to the plate and do something about it, so through personal experiences and research I have tried to respond to some of the most pressing customer service challenges,” he said.
According to him, the usual ‘I’m doing you a favour’ by some companies must stop and companies must, therefore, have it at the back of their minds that it is the repeated purchases of the customer that keeps the company in business.
“We need to have an ownership mentality where we become excellent service ambassadors of the corporate entities we represent, being a public sector, private sector or a non-governmental organisation,” he added.
The Group Head-Customer Service of Ecobank Ghana, Madam Naana Abban, who launched the book, said companies must recognise that the survival of their business depended on the service they rendered to their customers.
According to her, the balance of power currently, is shifting from the firms to the consumers and it is about time businesses woke up to the reality.
“I am sure we have all have some experiences, where we wonder does this gentleman or young lady know who actually pays her salary?” she asked. She also said: “The experience rightly starts from the car park till the transaction is over and that which does inform the entire experience whether it was a bad one or a good one.”
She said the book had come at the right time and would help shape readers in their day-to-day activities with their customers.