Captains of industry and several cabinet ministers are expected to grace the inaugural Service Excellence Awards which will be held at Sunbird Capital Hotel next month. The Service Excellence Awards are organised and managed by the Chartered Institute of Customer Management which is a global customer service and call centre professional and academic board currently represented in three continents through its global implementation and certification partnership network with its regional head offices in South Africa.
Service Excellence Awards is the premier continental customer service event set aside to recognise organisations which are doing so well in championing and promoting customer service excellence across the continent. The awards are hosted in several countries including in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Zambia among others. According to the CICM CEO Mrs Ricky Harris “winners from each country including Malawi will participate at continental awards next year. Mrs Harris added that selection process was so rigorous, which included Mystery Shopping online surveys and physical questionnaire administration. The process ended with adjudicators siting down to analyse the research results.
Mr Rinos Mautsa a customer service expert and CICM board member weighed in that customer expectations are continually rising, the wider community is becoming aware of the value and role that Customer Service plays in achieving business success. This highly demanding area is arguably the critical success factor for any organisation and Malawi at large.
For this reason CICM is introducing the Service Excellence Awards in Malawi to recognise, promote and reward excellence, professionalism and outstanding achievement in all sectors. According to the organisers, companies and organisations will vie for the following award categories: the hospitality sector, ICT and telecoms, banking and financial services, Government departments, local authorities and utilities, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, transport sector (air, rail, and road) and retail and fast foods. Other sectors that will be competing for recognition for service excellence include the education sector, health insurance, funeral insurance, financial insurance, automobile industry (vehicle servicing, assembling, and sales), security and the courier services.
Special awards to be given out to also include: the Lifetime Achievement Award, Customer Service Executives of the Year, Best Call Centre award and the Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility Award among others. CICM Malawi country partner Dr Peter Jere indicated that all is set and over 100 delegates are expected from various sectors to grace this prestigious ceremony.
Just like most of the countries in Africa, Malawi has generally lagged behind in terms of service delivery and customer service, making its customer-facing industries generally uncompetitive on the global landscape, which makes the Service Excellence Awards a positive initiative. Various researches pointed out that the service sector in Africa is on the boom and firms can only partake to the dividends of such through offering legendary customer services.
