EDITORIAL - Promoting good customer service a must

Barbadians are good at complaining, but few actually make the effort to do something that would ensure change is made in regard to their complaints.

Take customer service for example: we would complain it is poor but not take a stand to force, if need be, employers and employees alike to recognise that the way they treat to customers is of paramount importance. Unfortunately, that reality is one that too many of us still fail to grasp, not understanding the negative impacts that poor customer service can have on businesses and the country in general, and we take the idea of delivering high quality customer service as a joke.

But in these tough economic times we cannot afford to joke about these things. The fact is that this prolonged recession has seen the decline of the consumers’ buying power, and with competition among companies in the various fields becoming stiffer practically every day, no company can think of sustaining their business, much less achieving growth, without focusing on affording their customers, not just good, but exceptional customer service.

We often fail to appreciate that a customer can make or break a business, and in this day and age of technology and the ever popular social media outlets, bad word-of-mouth can spread as fast as a wild fire causing companies to find it difficult to retain existing customers, and worse yet, lose out on acquiring new ones. We wish local companies to recognise that in these tough times, when the dollar is tight, persons will be loyal to and go with companies that put their customers first.

Too often in this country service excellence is scoffed at because too many of our people unfortunately still associate customer service with servitude. But the two could not be further apart, and concerted efforts must be made to ensure that is ingrained in the minds of all our people – those delivering the service and those who receive it.

Now, there is no denying that there are some employees who go the extra mile to serve the customer, and they must be commended; but at the same time, we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that that is commonplace. And as we noted earlier, in an era where social media is so widely used, a bad customer service encounter could reach millions instantaneously and that certainly would not augur well for this country which relies on tourism and international business to keep the economic ship afloat. Given that, it is very important that all visitors to these shores, be they here for business or pleasure, feel assured they are getting value for money.

As such, we think it prudent that all companies develop a customer service charter, and not just those in the tourism field. In fact, this is a must not just for the private sector, but the public
sector as well. Such a document should not only outline what customers can expect to receive when interacting with the organisation, but should include provisions for customers to offer feedback on the service – good, bad or ugly.

We believe that the National Initiative for Service Excellence must be at the forefront of these efforts, as to date that office has done a commendable job helping to bring about change. It is imperative that they are given the means to continue this work, and to collaborate with the management of private and public sector entities to develop those charters and put them into operation without delay.