Irrespective of industry, South African companies seem to provide universally unacceptable levels of service. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but it seems as if the concept of a service ethic takes pride of place in the sales and contractual elements of business, but not in delivery.
Inana Nkanza, MD of iLAYO Software Solutions, believes we suffer from poor service levels because we allow it; and because we allow it, service providers are completely relaxed about providing it.
"With the proliferation of service desks and clearly defined service-level agreements (SLAs), we can surely do a better job. 'Best effort' service will not make South Africa a global competitor."
Nkanza states that one of the primary causes of a poor service ethic is the poor service offered to employees. The service and attitude companies exhibit to their staff will determine the service and attitude staff take towards customers.
"If a new staff member has to sit around doing nothing for a few days while a PC and login details are arranged, it speaks volumes about how valuable the person is to the company and how seriously the company takes service," explains Nkanza. "Moreover, if a call centre operator reports a PC problem and had to wait for IT to fix the problem, this member of staff is being told in no uncertain terms how important their job is to the company and how important they are to customers."
The service ethic needs to be part of everything a company does, even when dealing with its own staff. Implementing a service desk solution that integrates all service issues an IT department has to deal with, providing management with a global overview of issues is a start.
Simply knowing what tasks are still outstanding, however, is not enough. The service desk must also be able to assign people to the tasks and monitor their progress. If not resolved within a certain time, automatic escalation should see someone higher up the chain becoming involved and finding out if the assigned technician is overworked or under-motivated.
Most important of all is that the person requesting the service be notified that the problem is logged and given an expected resolution time. They should also be kept informed until the problem is finally resolved.
"That is simply good service," notes Nkanza. "And more importantly, it is a good example of how to provide a good service. If service providers can not even take good care of their own infrastructures, they will never deliver the performance customers require. And with an increasing number of companies demanding punitive clauses in their SLAs, poor service could become very costly."
Share