Chairman of the Jamaica Customer Service Association (JaCSA), Dr Nsombi Jaja, says Jamaica can improve its service excellence rapidly, if more effort is spent highlighting examples of good customer service across the country.
Her message came during the launch of National Customer Service Week, which will be celebrated this week, from September 30 to October 6.
“There is a principle of life that says ‘pay attention to what you want more of’, so if you want bad customer service, continue to showcase those, and if you want great customer service, showcase those, because every day there is excellent customer service,” Dr Jaja underscored, as she welcomed the audience to the launch, recently, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston.
“We tend to focus on the negative and we need to stop that!” Dr Jaja charged the audience, “Because the more you focus on the negative, the more of it you will get.”
Giving personal examples of recent acts of good customer service, Dr Jaja emphasised that consumers are often quick to underscore the poor customer experiences they encounter rather than the positive ones.
“We jump on Facebook, we jump on Instagram, we jump on Twitter, we jump on all of these social media platforms, she said.
However, she urged members of JaSCA and customer service providers, to use National Customer Service Week to promote a change in perception across the country.
“Let us use National Customer Service Week to create a tectonic shift in our mind-set; in our attitude, and in our focus on customer service and service excellence,” she pleaded.
National Customer Service Week is being celebrated under the theme: Be the Magic: The Making of Memorable Customer Experiences.
Delivering remarks at the launch, Carlene Clarke, head of customer experience and service recovery at JN Bank, platinum sponsors of National Customer Service Week, said that to create magic, companies and other entities, providing service to the public, must make a concerted effort to focus on service delivery.
She noted that companies can indeed create magical moments for customers, by constantly improving the turnaround time on their service; and, ensuring that employees are knowledgeable about products and services.
“One of the things, which negatively impacts customer service, is when employees within an organisation give customers different directions, and confuse and frustrate them. And, sometimes it is simply a case of giving them incomplete information,” she pointed out.
Citing the Doing Business Report by the World Bank Group, the JN Bank customer service head, concluded that, “Improving customer service in Jamaica will improve the country’s appeal internationally, and make it more attractive for investment.”
Miss Clarke noted that in the World Bank Report, Jamaica slipped three places in 2017 to 70th out of 190 countries from 67th in 2016.
“Excellent customer service is the key to business success. The opposite of this is also true. Poor customer service impacts negatively on your organisation. It is said that on average, an unhappy customer will tell ten persons about his or her experience with a company,” she advised. “Talk about the power of a customer.”
