Marleise McBean-Graham | A matter of customer service

Jamaica, as a small island, is well rated on the international scene. The country has been progressing on many fronts, but it is slow, and a lot of it boils down to our disregard for customer service. For persons who have travelled to some of the more affluent North American and European countries, and even a few places in the Caribbean, there is excellent evidence of customer service.

The first thing is professionalism, which involves first being courteous to the customer, displaying helpful attitude, being calm in all situations, being honest, and even empathetic. Being properly attired is important for success. People will gravitate to persons who are well groomed and pleasant. Despite the Government’s best efforts, some transport providers do not adopt the uniform mandate. How do we get employees to be professional? Many times we train persons on how to do a good job, we emphasise the rudiments of a particular profession, but do we focus on the people aspect, training persons to give good customer service?

Most employers focus on customers, but not on the employees. Employees should be treated as well as customers, and once an employee is happy it will reflect well on the organisation. Incorporating work promotion strategies, such as employee of the month/year, good team player awards, being impartial in employee relations, giving cash rewards annually, workplace outings and spa gift certificates can be very uplifting for employees.

Patience has to be the mantra of a Jamaican customer. I have been to several of our service institutions. In a lot of cases, employees are overwhelmed with customers for the six to eight hours that they face the public. There are long lines; customers spend many hours and become disgruntled. When their turn comes, some of the customers tend to be in a terrible mood and the employee often responds likewise. In such situations, a well-thinking employer would employ more persons to deal with the customer load.

Many persons who have nine-to-five jobs try to transact their personal business during their lunch hour, getting extra staff to deal with lunch-hour customers would be beneficial to many businesses. Where customers are treated well, the word will spread and business will improve. However, this is not so, so the wait becomes longer during the lunch period, and productivity is arrested for many businesses while their employees wait in line to do their personal business. I often read the paper and see that some of these businesses publish their balance sheet at the end of the year, and the profits run into millions and billions. Why not use some of this profit to provide better customer service?

POOR PHONE ETIQUETTE

Many institutions have very poor phone etiquette, which does not build good customer relations. I have had experiences, especially those which are government-oriented, and have spent up to one hour waiting for a response. Some of these institutions start work at 8 a.m. but will not respond to customers until one hour after. Similarly, in the evening hours it is sometimes difficult to reach anyone within one hour of closing time. We need to train our employees so that they will respond promptly and use the right vocal tones and pitch when responding to telephone calls. Disregarding proper call etiquette can negatively affect customers and cause significant revenue loss for businesses.

A friend, who has been living in the United Kingdom for some time, told me that “doing business in Jamaica is hard”. I concur with that statement when I consider that many of our services are tied up in using the justices of the peace; for example, getting. a passport, getting a copy of the birth certificate, doing certain motor vehicle transactions. So if you do not know a justice of the peace, you may have to pay large sums to get a signature or have some delay in getting your transaction done. These services are also very money-oriented, and if it is that we want these services to happen on the same day, we have to pay extra. So we have same-day service, or express in a few hours; three-day service; or a general waiting time, which may be one to two weeks. I am not bashing Jamaica here, because other countries do practise this, but we generally have difficultly when it comes to doing many of our business transactions. So I conclude that if it is possible for the service to happen in one day, we could employ more persons and increase our daily revenue and customer satisfaction.

LONG WAIT

It is a general occurrence, especially with regard to some government entities, that private contractors wait very long periods to get payment for services done. This can be extended up to five to six months or longer. Sometimes, these persons end up withdrawing their services in order to avoid bankruptcy; this is very poor treatment of customers. Government employees also need to improve their customer relations, some persons move very slowly, and productivity is very slow during the eight-hour shift. Some persons come to work for the 8 a.m. shift, and they sit and have breakfast while the customer waits, and then they behave as if they are doing the customer a favour in attending to them. Some may even ask customers for monetary rewards in order to move things along faster.

Some of our utility companies need to rethink how they do business. Customers can be very prompt in paying their bills for years, but as soon as there is a digression the service is discontinued. How about investigating why customers might default? Sometimes it may be a client who is suddenly facing financial issues and may need some leniency.

Employers need to do research to ascertain productivity trends; we are stuck in our traditional patterns, and this is a deterrent to economic growth and customer satisfaction. Sometimes it may mean changing a shift to earlier-than-regular hours or later than usual in order to catch the crowd. Employers can use strategies such as giving overtime pay and providing transportation to help employees to adjust to unusual hours, especially if it will be advantageous to the organisation.

It may not be cost-effective to address all areas of society with respect to customer service training. However, if we focus on educating our general populace, especially the young people, we will see the results over time. Workplaces can initiate customer service training at periodic intervals, especially those that interact regularly with the public. The Jamaican people need good customer service, both from our government and our private-sector institutions. ‘Putting people first’ means providing the best options for people. A service-oriented institution will not have persons waiting for more than half an hour, and will ensure that customers are comfortable while they wait; and will also provide staff that will exhibit the right qualities while interacting with the customer. This will, in time, propel Jamaica to economic prosperity and fulfil our mandate of being a place to live, work, raise families, and, ultimately, do business.

Marleise McBean-Graham is an assistant lecturer at The University of the West Indies School of Nursing. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.