Telecel Zimbabwe has been presented with the Zimbabwe Institute of Management’s 2010 Customer Service Excellence Award, in recognition of its leadership in customer care.
Managing director Aimable Mpore was presented with the award at the institute’s Manager of the Year Awards ceremony in Harare on Friday last week (29 April).
The runner-up for the award was PowerTel Communications. Pathfinder Luxury Coaches took third place in this award category, a category that covers all sectors of the economy.
Telecel’s commitment to excellent customer service is evident in its mission statement, which focuses on understanding and satisfying customer needs and on constantly stretching the limits of service to create real value, and in the practical steps it has taken to understand and meet those needs.
Every month Telecel interviews a few subscribers to find out what they feel about its service. The feedback from these interviews is captured, collated, analysed and submitted to Telecel’s management for review.
The information is shared company-wide, so that different departments can profit from it and decide on what they need to do to improve customers’ experience.
A full survey, known as the Customer Satisfaction Survey, is carried out once a year. The survey is aimed at understanding customer needs and wants in order to design services that meet those needs and give customers the experience they want.
Telecel’s call centre is open from 8am to midnight every day to deal with customer enquiries and complaints.
The centre is run by fully trained customer service agents who have spent time attached to various departments, so that they can gain a thorough understanding of the business and the operations of different departments, the operations of which are most commonly the subject of customer enquiries and complaints.
The call centre is accessible to all customers, including those making use of Telecel’s roaming service outside the country.
A computer run programme logs the complaints or queries that are received.\Using predefined categories and types, the programme places them in escalation modules.
Depending on the type of query and how quickly it is resolved, the system escalates any unresolved problem to the next senior level. If a problem remains unsolved it can even reach the managing director, though this does not happen often as customer service agents are fully trained to cope with customer related challenges.
Telecel believes in the one-stop service delivery concept. Staff members who deal directly with customers are expected to fully service the customer’s needs without having to refer the customer to numerous departments or individuals.
The company has introduced a customer management programme, the philosophy of which is that everyone in the company, from the managing director to the lowest person in the company structure, must as part of his or her core business, serve the customer.
Every department identifies points of contact with customers and comes up with ways of addressing customer needs and formulating action plans.
To measure its customer service, Telecel uses an international benchmark, the International Customer Service Index. It also ensures the quality of its service complies with the Posts and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) quality-related benchmarks.
Key performance indicators include the connectivity rate. The connectivity rate is monitored by Telecel’s technical department to ensure that it meets and betters local standards.
In the call centre, the average speed with which calls are answered is measured. Steps are continually taken to improve the answer time.
To encourage customer service agents to be fast, efficient, polite, helpful and customer-oriented, the customer service department runs an employee of the month scheme, which culminates in an employee of the year award.
Telecel has ISO 9001:2000 certification. The procedures it has in place in terms of that certification help ensure that its service is fast and efficient.
Management structures are more consultative than hierarchical, which ensures red tape is minimal in dealing with customers. Staff have easy access to senior management, which enables them to solve problems quickly.
Telecel is currently the second largest mobile phone network in the country, with more than 1 400 000 active subscribers.
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3 comments
Well done, sounds good to me
Having visited Telecel offices a couple of times in the past, I would agree to some extend that their customer is quite satisfactory and much better that most business enterprises in the country. Let me take this opportunity to ask the entire Econet Established, notebook and pen in hand, to visit Telecel offices and their call centre and learn and absorb as much as possible about customer service. The arrogance and rudeness one encounters at Econet offices and call centres is incongruous with the super profits Econet supposedly reaps from the Zim market.
And by the way, how’s Econet internet these days?
I TOOK A PATHFINDER BUS ON THE 12/07/2011 and it wa a nightmare the bus light were broken and when i asked the driver he said his job was to drive not check the bus i mean wats that?so its al your fault people die.i hate pathfinder bus,i hate u!!!!!the bus hit a cow and we had to go to a police station if the correct job was done on the bus we shouldnt have not been delayed please check your buses before u kill the whole world i repeat i hate pathfinder bus!!