Madam Yvonne Ohui Maccarthy, President, Institute of Customer Service Professionals (ICSP) has said Customer Service Index (CSI) for the year 2020 increased by 3.3 percent as against that of 2019.

She said a survey conducted by the Institute with a sample size of 3,182 for the year in review saw the index at 65.55 per cent whereas that of 2019 was 62.62 percent.

Madam McCarthy said this at a media engagement on Thursday in Accra to provide reports on how various sectors in the country were performing in relation to customer services.

The event also provided the opportunity to measure customer satisfaction of institutions in Ghana through interactions by industry players.

Madam McCarthy said the survey, third in series, focused on hospitality, retail malls, insurance, online businesses, banking, health care, transportation, telecommunications, utilities and public sectors of the economy.

Speaking on the performances of the sectors in relation to customer service, she said the results of the survey indicated that hospitality came first with 76.63 per cent, retail malls, second with a customer service percentage of 74 per cent, insurance with 71.79 percent, online businesses with 69.99 percent, banking with 65.84 percent, health care with 63.84 per cent, telecommunications with 63.24 per cent, in that order.

Transportation, utilities and public institutions were ranked at the bottom three with 59.91 per cent, 56.86 per cent and 53.83 per cent respectively.

Explaining the impacts of COVID-19 on customer service, Madam McCarthy, said despite the fact that the pandemic had adverse impacts on various sectors, there had been positive impacts as well.

She explained that the pandemic helped organizations to be extra innovative, re-evaluate and reset their ways of executing duties as created seamless services to provide customer satisfaction.

“Before the pandemic set-in, consumers of telecommunication services were not usually tracking their consumption of internet data, but because most of us were not that busy due to the lockdown, we usually checked how much data we have consumed after using our phones for some time. The pandemic made people more conscious of their data usage,” she said.

Madam McCarthy advised business owners to provide workers with necessary resources and technological tools to enhance effective work.

Mr. Clement H. Holloway, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wewrite Technologies, a consultant on the project, said ICSP had provided a customer service survey platform, a customer service online courses platform and a serve check accreditation application platform, which helped in the assessment.

He said the customer service survey platform gave customers the opportunity to lodge their complaints when unsatisfied with the services of institutions they visited.

Mr Holloway said customers could share their experiences via www.ghanacsi.org/survey, for future surveys.

Mr. Albert Cofie, Managing Director, Hegemony Consultancy, assured citizens of the effective and smooth usage of the platforms provided by the institution.

He encouraged citizens to speak out in cases, where they got dissatisfied services to improve customer service in the country.