Customer service is a greatly under-valued concept in Namibia and this is something that the second national Customer Service Management Africa Awards and Conference hopes to change. The awards and conference event, which was launched yesterday by the Harold Pupkewitz Graduate School of Business (HP-GSB) at the Polytechnic of Namibia, is being managed in partnership with Conference Link.
The annual event was initially known as the Namibia Customer Service Awards but has since taken on a pan-African perspective. “This year’s theme will be ‘Expecting Better: Delivering More’. That means we want to bridge the gap between customers and suppliers by creating informed customers and motivated suppliers,” said HP-GSB Director, Grafton Whyte. He noted that while the focus of the event will be on Namibia, specifically in terms of data collection, a number of speakers and experts from various African countries are expected to contribute to the pool of research with a view to create an Africa-wide movement, with Namibia as the hub.
The HP-GSB initiated the project last year and has since contracted Business Intelligence Africa (BIA), a Namibian research company, to carry out fieldwork of the National Customer Service Household Survey. Just as last year, the survey aims to target 1 500 households and their occupants nationwide to share their experiences of customer service in key industries that have a major impact on their daily lives. According to Whyte, the 2014 National Customer Service Survey collected more than 7 200 responses and a similar number is executed for 2015. BIA, with its team of 30 data collectors, have been tasked to target households in all regions of the country. The interviews will be conducted anonymously while the results will be reported only in group format, without identifying any names or addresses of the interviewees. BIA’s findings will determine the winner in each of the 12 categories. This year the areas that will be surveyed are supermarkets, banks, health services, municipal services, electricity supply, telecommunications, home affairs, insurance, post office services, education, car dealerships, convenience foods and leisure resorts.
“Interestingly, the companies that do well in the survey are mostly those that are more interested in the Customer Service Report,” noted Whyte. Also at the event, Daisry Mathias, Chief Executive Officer of Team Namibia, noted that while her organization is tasked with making Namibian products and services part of everyday life, this mandate remains challenging with sub-standard services offered by many local companies. “We need to begin to compete regionally and ultimately globally,” noted Mathias.
Meanwhile, Whyte continued that the HP-GSB is expected to formally launch the Customer Service Association of Namibia soon. Among the initiatives the forum would undertake are professionalism and research that are expected to bring together major industry players to provide practical solutions to customer service issues.