This year’s National Customer Service Week has been launched, with a call for private and public sector collaboration to build the capacity of employees to improve on service delivery in the tourism and hospitality industry. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Kwasi Agyeman, stated that even though the public sector had a role in ensuring quality service within the tourism establishment, a partnership with the private sector would drive the industry to attain excellent customer service delivery.
This partnership, he said, would build the foundation to ensure that clients, both local and international, would experience good service delivery that competed with global standards.
“So customer service is not something that you finish; you always have to work at it, and so this initiative of celebrating Customer Service Week by putting the spotlight on service delivery is one that is important and should be applauded,” he added.
Mr Agyeman made the call at the launch of the second edition of the event scheduled to take off in the first week of October, this year.
Launch
The celebration is a collaboration between Service Excellence Foundation and the GTA under the theme: “Enhancing the Customer Service Experience Through Excellence”.
It will target both employees and customers in areas of food, transportation, hotels, ecotourism, amongst others.
As part of activities for the week, there will be roadshows, capacity building fora, and raffle draws to award deserving customers and employees.
The Executive Director of the Service Excellence Foundation and Creative Lead of the event, Caleb Koffie, explained that the event would create national awareness on the role and impact of customer service in businesses, while appreciating the efforts and contributions of employees and customers for service excellence in their sectors.
He stated that promoting customer service excellence in tourism and hospitality was a strategic tool for sustainable job creation, stimulating investor confidence and accelerated economic growth in business establishments in the country.
“Customer service is not a favour, but an opportunity to build relations for wealth creation,” he stressed.
Mr Koffie called for the support and participation of stakeholders within and across the sector to raise exceptional customer service delivery levels throughout the service week and beyond.
The past Vice-President of the Ghana Tourism Federation, Stella Appenteng, commended the team for the initiative in recognising the efforts of the customers and employees in the tourism sector as a way of motivating them to put up good work.
She stated that it was the responsibility of the industry players to lead the service in building a strong and resilient service delivery by training and building the capacity of their employees to give them the adequate and right orientation in their field of work.
Ms Appenteng also encouraged the service players to uniquely identify themselves with the traditional culture such as their dressing, the use of local names and dishes, among others, to put the country on the map rather than always adapting to the trends of the Western world.
Sponsorship
As part of prizes to reward the customers and employees during the service week, Emirates Airline presented a fully paid return ticket to Dubai for the prospective winners of the raffle draw.
Africa World Airline also supported with five tickets for the winners to any country of their choice among other prizes that would be awarded to the customers and employees for their exceptional service from the beginning of the year.
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