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Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba
“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” – Don Alden Adams
LATELY, local authorities have been under fire for poor service delivery.
In some cases, it has become so bad that some residents are boycotting paying their bills.
This has been compounded by failure of some council employees to deal with a demanding and frustrated public.
Each time I visit my local council office I always leave with these unanswered questions: Does council staff understand terms like “customer experience” or “touch points” when serving residents?
In their quest to deliver service, do they even try to put the customer first?
We all have had different experiences when interacting with various council officials. Personally, I think there is a lack of awareness when it comes to the difference between what they call service delivery and what customer service is all about.
Service delivery is what local authorities as entities do; that is, transforming inputs into outcomes of value to a customer.
But, customer service is the interaction that a customer has with the organisation in order to get a service.
Customer service deals with questions like, were you promptly served? Was the staff courteous? Was your inquiry acted upon? Were your queries resolved?
Answering the telephone or recording service failure reports such as burst water pipes, sewer bursts or non-functional traffic lights can be misconstrued as a service by employees of local authorities.
This is not a service but rather a response to service failure.
In a functional society, residents do not need to contact the local authority over basic service issues like potholes, faulty traffic lights or uncollected garbage.
It should be part of their job to check and monitor the functionality of the services that they are supposed to deliver.
Where there is a service breakdown, they should just fix it without waiting for residents to make noise about it.
In some instances, councils act only after a fatality.
We have seen cases where they dig up pits while doing some water pipe repairs and leave them open and unmarked, putting pedestrians and motorists at risk.
In urban areas, they even fail to cut grass, making it unsafe for both pedestrians and motorists.
The very residents whose lives are being put at risk by lack of service are the same residents that local authorities expect to receive rates from every month.
The culture of service delivery seems to be lacking in many councils, hence the quality of customer experience they give to the ratepayers tends to be very hostile.
There are serious service deficiencies within most councils, which has led many ratepayers to avoid paying for the services.
In Harare, for example, the quality of tap water provided by council is unclean and has an unpleasant smell.
Even if you look at it with the naked eye, one can see some dirty particles floating in it.
If you bottle that tap water for at least one week, the container eventually turns green.
To add salt to injury, there are constant random water cuts and residents have no choice but to save that smelly water in containers for later use.
Garbage collection is done haphazardly, if at all.
Where I live, refuse collection trucks tend to come unannounced, and if you miss them, then your garbage will go uncollected for some time.
This has led to a lot of dumping of garbage in open spaces, which is an eyesore and a serious health hazard.
Local authorities need to introspect and identify the root cause of service deficiency. No one wants to pay for a service that they are not happy with.
Next week I will touch on some of the challenges that I think local authorities face in their quest to provide good customer experiences.
*Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba is a marketing enthusiast with a strong passion for customer service. For comments, suggestions and training, she can be reached at [email protected] or on 0712 979 461, 0719 978 335
Online Reporter