‘Poor customer services costs us $40m’ – Akamanzi

The level of customer satisfaction currently stands at 71%. (file photo)

Private institutions have been urged by the government to improve on the level of customer service week. The remarks were made by the mayor of the city of Kigali Fidel Ndayisaba during a networking workshop with clients of the Kigali construction and urban planning center, which was one of many events organized by the Rwanda development Board (RBD) to mark the international customer service week.

It was the first time Rwanda joined the rest of the world to mark the week, celebrated globally in the first week of October every year since 1984 with the purpose to reward and recognize people who deliver good customer service.
Clare AKamanzi, the chief operations officer (COO) of RDB, noted that customer care is a priority for the country in the context of EDPRS-2. “Rwanda can get an additional $40 million every year from service delivery, which is more than half it gets from exporting tea and coffee.”
Online transactions in the form of e-business have been recognized as a major indicator in boosting the customer service in the country.

The week-long event held under the theme ‘Think Service’ was devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and honoring people who serve and support customers with the highest degree of care and professionalism.
“Since it is Rwanda’s first time to celebrate with the world, our focus is to encourage service providers to offer exceptional service,” Akamanzi noted.
Yves Ngenzi, head of the Customer Care Unit at RDB, pointed out that five major pillars of customer service have been identified: communication, problem solving, timeliness, professionalism and ease of doing business.
The level of customer satisfaction in Rwanda currently stands at 71%, based on a research carried out from May to June 2013 within various public and private institutions. This is an improvement compared to the 60% level of 2010, yet the target is to reach 80% by 2017.