Customer Service Practitioners Association (CUSPA) says there is no hiding place for any service provider faking customer service, as the customers’ experience is the blueprint to any organisational culture that is customer friendly or not.
This was the opinion thought-leaders agreed to at a recent forum on Customer Service Experience across industries held in Lagos. The forum gave deeper insights into customer experience and understanding, as experts and industry leaders gave their opinion based on knowledge and years of experience in the service industry.
Nduka Mba-Uzuokwu, head, customer service management, Enterprise Bank, representing the Customer Experience function during the debate, stated that not all organisations truly understand customer service. Most businesses mimic customer service and customer satisfaction, to them customer service is just one of those things and not a culture and this reflects in the way they manage the customers and the customer’s complaints.
Most organisations are driven by profit making and not by creating positive customer experiences, he said, saying “they fail to realise that profit generation is dependent on the customer’s perception of your business, the satisfaction he derives from the product and services and also from consumption.”
For Uloma Umeano, president, CUSPA, organiser of the forum, who spoke on customer service function relating to the customers experience, said customer service cannot be faked and organisations cannot hide under the fourth priority. Organisations that really want to make profit must understand that sustainable profit making is intertwined with the customer’s experience, she said.
CUSPA is here to make sure that those organisations that are not prepared or planning to give experiential services and respect to their customers are fished out, she said, as “we have begun operations and have outlined steps that will ensure that there is no hiding place for any organisation that is not customer focused. It is a customer service crime to milk out money from the customers without maximising their experiences. In no time, customers will be able to make the right choices when shopping for service providers based on CUSPA operations.”
The CUSPA president also advised service providers to stop taking chances with the customer’s experience, as customers that do not understand the concept of customer service take what they get from the service providers and this was what most businesses capitalise on. Customers’ ignorance of how they should be treated is not a licence to undermine their experiences, she noted further.
Organisations must understand that customer service is a planned and deliberate effort to consistently give magical experiences to their customers at every customer touch point, she said, as “the customers deserve this much and more, they are the reason you are in business.”
