Businesses in SVG fail to realize importance of customer service

EDITOR: Customer service continues to be a problem in this country. There are far too many complaints by customers most of which are truthful and not exaggerating.

I guess businesses in this country fail to realize the importance of customer service. Maybe it is time for some serious improvements by businesses and even government departments.

Can you imagine someone carried a machine at a particular place to be fixed with one simple problem? After weeks of inquiring by the customer the status of the machine and is given no definite word as to the status. Then one day the customer calls and was told that the machine is fixed but the invoice is not yet ready. Therefore the
customer does not know the cost of the work done. Lo and behold after about a week or so when the customer’s calls again the customer was told that the invoice is now ready and can you guess the cost of fixing.

The cost of fixing was almost the cost of purchasing another one. The funny thing though is the lack of professionalism and customer service by the company. What any professional ought to do is to let the customer know before fixing it, the condition and let the customer decide on whether to proceed or not.

This is not an isolated case, for there are many cases of this nature. This is indeed a lack of professionalism and customer care and satisfaction.

Here is also another case, where another customer purchases an item which has an eight months warranty. However, unfortunately the product failed after five months.

The customer did not have the receipt to show at the moment but the business place knew it was bought there and had a duplicate copy of the receipt and failed to replace the item or even give another item at a discount price. Instead that customer was given a run around by the owner of the business place. So because of the urgency the customer had to purchase another one but from a different company.

This other company was more professional and had better customer service and so when the customer purchased the item the date of purchase and the particulars of the item was marked on it so as to verify the product and its warranty in the event that it malfunctions before the warranty expires.

Ladies and gentlemen these are just two of the numerous experiences many customers encounter on a daily basis from businesses in this country who are displaying poor customer service and engaging in highway robbery.

From time to time we read on social media and in the press of bad experiences customers endured due to poor customer services, lack of professionalism and highway robbery. There are other companies that are doing well due in part to good customer services, professionalism and not engaging in highway robbery. No wonder sometimes that some businesses fail to survive while others are doing well.

It is time for an improve customer service in SVG.

Kennard King