Human Resource (HR) Practitioners in Ghana have been asked to take the blame for how poorly customer service is rendered in the country, the Chief Executive Officer of KUSI Consulting, Ms Rita KUSI, has said.
Because the HR Heads in the various organisations are those who recruits most of the people put in charge to ensure good customer experience in the country, they need to be prepared to take the fall should the competence of those they recruited are called into question, she says.
“As HR, we manage the people that also drives and manage the business and the policies so that the business can reach it goals. So I think we need just need to do better in terms of training”, she added.
Ms Rita was reacting to the latest Ghana Customer Service Index (GCSI) report which bemoaned the state of customer experience delivery in Ghana, in an interaction with the Ghana Talks Business.
Customer service
Customer service in both public and private sector in Ghana has come under scrutiny in recent times.
A recent survey conducted by the Institute of Customer Service Professionals indicates that custom service in the public sector was the worst in the country.
It used key metrics such as professionalism, customer-focused innovations, feedback and complaints, processes and procedures as well as staff engagement to analyse service delivery in nine sectors of the economy.
In addition to this, the report further mentioned that customer loyalty in the hospitality sector dropped to 14.7 per cent, owing to a rise in dissatisfaction by customers in the sector.
Overhaul
Owing to this, Ms Rita is calling for a complete overhaul of the way and manner customer service is delivered in the country.
“Customer service in General our country needs a major overhaul and we need to focus and invest more in that sector”, she said.
Therefore, she is proposing regular training of the staff entrusted to man the customer service desk in organisations to make them effective on the job.
“You need to know the kind of employees that you have within the organisation and use the proper means to train them and make the effective on the job to provide great custom service”, she said.
Worst during year of return
Again, she added that the situation was even more worse during the year of return celebration as many of her friends who visited the country had several issue with how customer service was delivered.
“Last year was the year of return and many of my friends who came to Ghana bitterly complained about how customer service is rendered in the country”.
“I was with them and I experienced it. You could go to a four-five-star hotel and the customer service is still bad”, she laments.
Customer service key to tourism sector
She further added that Ghana could raise more revenue from its tourism sector if it took a general look, in terms of investment, at how customer experience was rendered.
She said one of the key factors that attracts tourists to a destination was the experience they derive from the service they patronise.
Consequently, she said “we need to also speak to most of these employees and find out what their challenges are and how best to address them to make them get better on their job, because if your customer service is bad you going to lose business”.
