B&FT Editorial: Customer service in public sector woeful

Each year, the Institute of Customer Service Professionals (ICSP) runs the Ghana Customer Service Index (GCSI) - a customer satisfaction survey for the country. Launched in 2017, it provides a unique way of measuring the current customer satisfaction of Ghanaian customers, as well as trends over time. The Institute of Customer Service Professionals runs an online and face to face survey of consumers once a year.

With the increasing awareness of customer's rights and demands, it has become important now more than ever to pay particular attention to customer service culture as a nation - with the aim of attracting more foreign direct investment.

The public sector in Ghana has attracted concern and interest among politicians , citizens ,public servants and development partners (DPs) during the past six decades of independence since 1957. In short, the public sector delivers services and produces goods to citizens, organisations, or other levels of governments.

The recent Customer Service Report 2019 pointed out that the Public Sector is the worst performer for customer satisfaction in the country. This does not come as major surprise, considering the fact that the public sector has been notorious for inefficiency and lack-luster attitudes by employees who only seek to milk such institutions at every given opportunity.

The report analysed the public sector based on nine institutions - including the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Authority (DVLA); Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA); Passport Office;National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS); Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT); Ghana Police Service (GPS); Ghana Broadcating Corporation (GBC); Food and Drugs Authority (FDA); and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC).

Not too surprisingly, the top-three sectors are made of mostly foreign-owned companies driven largely by technology, while the bottom-three are the reverse. What can be gleaned from the report is that Ghanaians do not value customer service; they treat their business or customers differently from how foreigners do.

The report recommends that business need to foster a service culture that will delight customers. The attitude of a customer needs to be positively influenced through each experience of and engagement with the company, the report noted. This is very important, and the difference between customer care in our jurisdiction and what pertains the developed economies is that clients are welcomed with a warm smile with courteous mannerism - while here service providers act in a manner to suggest they are doing the customer a favour and tend to be rude or unattached, expecting some form of monetary gratification before they perform their designated roles.

This attitude puts off would-be clients and customers and might even find drive them away, thereby causing the institution to lose out on crucial business. We need to change for the better, since most of them are professionals with requisite training in customer care.