The Sunday Mail
Business Reporter
Business should move quickly to adjust to new consumer dynamics that have been brought about by Covid-19 or risk being left behind.
This was the central point of discourse coming out of the Executive Customer Experience Virtual Symposium held earlier this week, running under the theme “Customer Experience Mindset In The Midst of Covid-19”.
Lockdowns and World Health Organisation regulations such as social distancing mandates, have changed the consumer habits of buying and shopping, as well as how businesses offer their services.
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe executive director Rosemary Siyachitema, said the regulatory environment around consumer protection should reflect the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
“Covid-19 has brought new modes of doing business, for instance you find people selling foodstuffs from the back of their cars. But laws and regulations have not adjusted accordingly.
“There is need to ensure that consumers are protected,” she said.
But before protection issues even come into play, businesses need to be in touch with their customers first.
Customer service expert Ashley Matsangaise, says Zimbabwean businesses were rather slow to the digitisation game, but are now forced to adjust.
“Covid-19 has come in to expedite the (digitisation) process, which had already been long underway, and companies had to hit the ground running. Agility is going to be key going forward in terms of ensuring that organisations are able to reach their customers.
“Businesses need to remember that customers remain the key pillar. In the new digital economy, the omni-channel customer experience needs to be enhanced because clearly customers have moved from conventional to digital platforms and businesses have to be where the customers are,” she said.
BancABC customer experience manager, Shamiso Zulu, said businesses need to keep the consumer as the key focus of their enterprise.
“In light of the pandemic customer experience has taken a new meaning. Businesses need to focus on fundamentals, relook at company values, organisational purpose and leverage on these to provide and leave lasting impressions on their customers,” said Ms Zulu.
“Customers are now in need of more information and support. So companies need to reach out to communities, not in a marketing way but to offer genuine support. It’s also important for companies to innovate around some of the new challenges that have been brought about by Covid-19.”
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s customer satisfaction ranking has weakened marginally on the latest National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) Report.
The fourth edition of the NCSI was launched last week by the Chartered Institute of Customer Management (CICM) in partnership with the Contact Centre Association of Zimbabwe (CCAZ).
The overall National Index for 2020 was 62,6, a point decrease from 63,6 in 2019.
The Top 10 rated companies, according to the National Customer Satisfaction Survey as a benchmark for customer satisfaction in Zimbabwe were Nyaradzo Group, Pick n Pay, First Mutual Life, Cassava Smarttech, Meikles Hotel, First Mutual Health, DHL, NetOne, Zimnat Assurance and Old Mutual in no particular order.
The report is based on results from National Satisfaction Survey carried out across the country from December 2019 to May 2020.
It sheds light on several metrics key in service delivery such as service quality, employee professionalism, courtesy, customer effort, perceived value, digital customer experience index and complaint handling.
Commenting on the launch of the 2020 NCSI, CICM chief executive Ms Ricky Harris said:
“Customer satisfaction acts as a key differentiator of price in the midst of this pandemic and even beyond, price is no longer the main attraction for clients but rather overall quality of customer service and customer experience.
“The NCSI Report is used by various organisations as a tool to optimise customer satisfaction in order to drive customer loyalty. It depicts brands exceeding or falling short of customer expectations and the respondents’ idea of the ideal product to achieve an overall result out of 100.
“Customers today expect companies to be aware of their preferences, needs, past behaviours and expectations. Therefore, the NCSI report enables various businesses across sectors to gather customer insights and in turn helps them respond better to customers’ expectations.”
