Let’s take customer service seriously
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) says it is working out modalities to penalise the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for its failure to replace faulty metres for a number of consumers nationwide.
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This decision by the PURC may have taken long in coming, but it certainly is a step in the right direction.
We believe that it is a commendable step because although consumers who found themselves paying above the 59.2 per cent increment in electricity tariffs which took effect in December 2015 complained about the unjustifiable burden placed on them, the ECG failed to correct the anomaly.
The situation saw some furious customers besieging selected offices of the ECG in parts of the country for the company to carry out the necessary correction of mistakes the consumers had identified themselves and had been acknowledged.
Yet, not even the intervention of the PURC in the matter brought about the required change, resulting in a host of customers going through some stress in the payment of unwarranted bills through no fault of theirs.
As the PURC found during a monitoring exercise to ascertain the veracity of claims by customers, there was rampant failure of some prepaid-payment meters, but the ECG did not attach any urgency to the matter of replacement to ease pressure on customers.
Also found by the monitoring team was some level of laxity towards the issue of replacement, which suggested that the ECG was not in any way bothered by its consumers’ complaints.
Elsewhere, customers’ rights are so protected that providers of goods and services are not able to take customers for granted or take them for a ride.
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Although we have a Consumer Protection Agency in Ghana it is not as vibrant as similar bodies in other countries, perhaps in view of the attitude of the average Ghanaian to let things go, even when those things are to his or her disadvantage.
The Daily Graphic hopes that the decision of the PURC to apply appropriate sanctions against the ECG for not taking seriously the concerns of some of its customers will be carried through for it to not turn out as an empty threat.
We believe that if the PURC carries through its decision, it will change not only the attitude of the ECG and other utility service providers towards their customers but also make all providers of services and goods cherish the customers who keep them in business.
After all, it is to meet the needs of customers that people establish companies and businesses. We, therefore, find it ironical that these same customers for whom the services are provided are mistreated by the providers who ride roughshod over them.
All of us are customers of one service or another and we owe it to ourselves to make our voice heard, so that we no longer stay at the receiving end.
We must call the shots because if we do not patronise services or goods, it is the company that will suffer, not the other way round.
The fact that a company such as the ECG, or the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), may be enjoying some amount of monopoly does not give it the moral right to treat its customers or consumers with scorn.
Every customer deserves the best of service and we must not settle for less. It is time to make consumer protection top priority in the country; after all the customer or consumer is king.