Wendy Knowler picks her ONE top thing to improve customer service in SA

When Bruce Whitfield asked Wendy Knowler to give some thought to the ONE THING that would improve customer service in South Africa, of course she had a whole lot of ideas.

These included companies keeping their promise to 'get back to you', banning archaic, patronising language and setting up effective platforms for consumers to engage with them.

In the end, the consumer journo whittled her choices down to one thing that would solve some of these issues in itself.

Each major company should have a higher-up, someone in the C-suite, whose KPAs (key performance areas) include advocating for the consumer.

In this scenario, all tricky consumer complaints would be kicked UPwards - the pre-Wendy Knowler step.

She adds the rider that the person reached, would have to look at the problem from the consumer's point of view.

"I don’t mean a knee-jerk 'the customer is always right, let’s just fob them off with a hamper or money' kind of 'make it go away' attitude... Just step out of the cold 'sorry for the inconvenience' corporate bubble, and really sit in the shoes of the consumer."

Wendy Knowler, Consumer Journalist

The next step would be for them to engage with the 'bean counters', Knowler says, arguing for justice for YOU.

That would be followed by an appropriate response to the aggrieved consumer, and also then changing the processes which led to the breakdown in the first place in the 'rhetoric they spout in their mission statement'.

What of course typically happens, says Knowler, is that real customers with genuine issues get trapped in 'call centre hell', with no recourse to the decision makers.

"Then their story lands up in my inbox; I send a query to the media liaison person or team, they send it to the boss person who has fixer power, they say so sorry, this is not the service we pride ourselves on,  nd their customer finally gets justice."

"Of course, if corporates actually did what I’m suggesting, my inbox would dry up and I’d have have nothing to write or talk about."

Wendy Knowler, Consumer Journalist

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