By Kimani Wiseman
The Christmas season is approaching and it is the time of the year when businesses would try to attract customers to purchase from them. Vincentians would be flying in from overseas to enjoy the season with their friends and family. Both locals and foreigners would be shopping at various businesses to purchase gifts, decorate their house and stocking up on food and drinks for the season. Businesses would be having a lot of customers during this time of the year. Having excellent customer services during the Christmas season would increase your profit margin and make customers return in the future at your business. However, some businesses their customer services are very poor.
Customer service refers to the assistance and support provided by your business or organization to your customers before, during and after a purchase or interaction. It covers a range of activities and interactions aimed at addressing customer inquiries, resolving issues, and ensuring a positive experience throughout the customer journey. Sometimes you enter some private firms and workers who should be assisting customers would be on their phone “texting”. Some of the workers would give attitude even when you ask for assistance. Saying good morning or good afternoon to some of these workers and you get no response and sometimes a “screw face”. The internet is imperative in today’s world. It provides good communication for the entire country and also students use the internet for researching and for online classes. However, although the internet is very important to society, very often when the internet is down and a report is made to the relevant authorities, it takes an eternity to get these issues resolved. While customers have to be paying a bill every end of month and if you don’t pay your bill on time, you get hit with a late fee and not getting value for your money. This is unfairness and high class robbery to hard working Vincentians. Why are Vincentians being disrespected to get good internet coverage? More businesses can offer deliveries to your customers for purchasing large items that would need transportation. Supermarkets and shops need to ensure that expired goods are removed from their shelves. This can cause food poisoning in the country. Restaurants and other persons who are involved in the food industry need to ensure that the environment is clean and there isn’t any insects and rodents around where the food is being prepared and when customers are eating. Sometimes hair would end up in people food. This need to be avoided. Pharmacies also need to remove expired medication from their shelves. If customers were to purchase expired goods and if the environment is not clean where the food is being prepared, it would deter customers from returning to your business.
Technology is advancing and businesses and the public sector need to capitalize on the advancement of technology. For example, you visit a private doctor or dentist and you seldom find a debit card machine that you can use to pay for your service. Most of the time payment is done by cash. More businesses also need a debit card machine. The public sector need to make payments much easier online for customers instead of having long lines at government departments. Answering the phone is sometimes an issue at some private firms and various Government Ministries. Calling some private firms and government departments and the phone would be ringing repeatedly with no answer. Excellent customer services would increase your profit margins, improve communication and increase productivity in the private and public sector. Hence the reason why some training is needed in both sectors about customer services. It must be noted that there are some private firms and government ministries who offer excellent customer services. Good customer services should be practiced every day in the private and public sector and not only during the Christmas season.