Lifting the standard in customer service and journalism

EDITOR: The standard of journalism and businesses need to be lifted. Before I divulge into my topic for today, I take this opportunity to say congratulations to WEFM on its 25th anniversary. WEFM by far is the best radio station that is privately owned. It is a well balanced station that allows both sides to have programmes and its standard is high.

journalism is a very important entity in any country. We continue to ask for a lifting of the standard of journalism. Far too often the journalist, news reporters and talk show host are just copy cats. Take for example, SVG TV recently reported word for word with the same headline a news article that was written on online news. The caption, “the captain of fair chance can be alive’. When you listen to the excerpts from a news release out of Trinidad we are yet to find anything that suggests that. There are also similar instances of copy cats and misleading headlines.

Tourism is a developing product here in SVG and we would all agree we are still behind and need morae improvements. The private sector which includes business places has a role to play in attracting tourist and encourage them to spend their money. With this in mind both the customer service and receipts of cash and card need to be improved.

As locals we often get angry with poor customer service that [is] offered by many institutions both Government and private sector. But it is even more destructive to say the least when a visitor to our shores walks into a store or an institution and is given poor customer service by sales personnel and others. It gives a bad impression and does not encourage sale, for many would not return to purchase items.

Only few stores take US currency for items purchased. Come to think of it, the US dollar is the most popular foreign currency and many visitors may come to our shores and are not willing to stay the length of time in a line to change their currency and so they may offer to pay in US. We know that some stores do accept the currency but not all. This can be a turn away also.

In this modern day and age many travellers as well as locals opt to pay with either a credit card or a Debit/Visa Card. This avoids the individuals from walking around with cash. So for ease and comfort they choose to use a card as mentioned. However, many business places do not have the machine to use this device. This can inconvenience visitors and even locals alike and can reduce the sales a store may receive. For many visitors choose to use their card rather than cash. So where there are not places that have the machine that allows the customer to use a card then it becomes a turn off for the visitor. No wonder most visitors spend little in this country because for many visitors they prefer to use their cards rather than cash.

Therefore with all that is written there is a need to lift the standard of our businesses and journalism. Congrats must be extended to some businesses who give very good customer service and have available the means to use the cards and also to the few news media who do a good journalism job, keep up the good work.

Kennard King