Customer Service Delivery in Africa
Customer Service Delivery in Africa

Author: Robert Ebo Hinson

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2024-02-26

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 1003856292

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Customer service management is one of the key pillars of today’s business environment. Businesses operating in sub-Saharan Africa and other frontier markets have begun to embrace the concept of customer service management, with many incorporating the notion into their mission statements – with many forward-thinking companies transitioning from a transactional to a more strategic view of the customer. As customers have evolved and transformed from "passive audiences" to "active players" businesses are moving away from "the old industry model that sees value as created from goods and services to a new model where value is created by experiences". Today, businesses and customers create value through customised, co-produced offerings. This co-creation of value helps firms highlight the customer’s or consumer’s point of view and improve the front-end process of identifying customers’ needs. Given the increasing recognition of the customer as a co-creator of value, perceptions of customer service quality during COVID-19 and afterwards matter to businesses in Africa looking to thrive in a new post-COVID era since customers increasingly face several choices in the bid to access consumer products and services. This book consists of seven chapters beginning with an overview detailing the importance of customer service matters to Africa’s development and ending with a discussion of the future directions for enhanced customer service delivery in Africa. Each chapter in this book includes actual customer service and delivery practices from various countries on the African continent, including Egypt, Ghana, and South Africa, and uncovers the challenges, successes, and potential areas for improvement in delivering quality customer service.

Customer Service Management in Africa
Customer Service Management in Africa

Author: Robert Hinson

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2020-05-07

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0429633432

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Customer Service Management in Africa: A Strategic and Operational Perspective (978-0-367-14337-4, K410515) "Customer Service is Changing!" The message of 34 authors featured in Customer Service Management in Africa: A Strategic and Operational Perspective is clear: Today’s consumers are no longer ‘passive audiences’ but ‘active players’ that engage with businesses at each stage of product or service design and delivery systems. Consumer demands and expectations are also increasingly being dictated by changing personal preferences, enhanced access to information and expanding digital reality. The customer service principles – strategic and operational – advocated by these authors are universal, but particularly compelling as they apply to Africa’s unique and dynamic operating environment. In recognition of the importance of excellent customer service, this comprehensive and well-timed book provides an essential guide on the increasing role of the customer to business success. This book discusses the management and delivery of customer service under seven broad themes: Customer Service as Shared Value, Customer Service Strategy, Customer Service Systems, Customer Service Style, Customer Service Culture, Customer Service Skills and Customer Experience – Advancing Customer Service in Africa. Central questions posed and addressed include: What is the new definition of customer service management? How should organisations position themselves to create value for customers and stakeholders? How should employees project themselves to align with customer service promises made by their organisations? Overall, this book provides strategic and operational insights into effective customer service management in Africa. The customer service management concepts, roles and practices outlined, particularly as they apply to the African context, make it an important addition to scholars’ or practitioners’ reference works.

Health Service Marketing Management in Africa
Health Service Marketing Management in Africa

Author: Robert Hinson

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2019-12-06

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0429683936

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Health Service Marketing Management in Africa (978-0-429-40085-8, K402492) Shelving Guide: Business & Management / Marketing Management The application of marketing to healthcare is a fascinating field that will likely have more impact on society than any other field of marketing. It’s been theorized that an intrinsically unstable environment characterizes this very relevant emerging field, hence raising new questions. Changing regulations, discoveries, and new health treatments continuously appear and give rise to such questions. Advancements in technology not only improve healthcare delivery systems but also provide avenues for customers to seek information regarding their health conditions and influence their participatory behaviors or changing roles in the service delivery. Increasingly, there is a shift from a doctor-led approach to a more patient-centered approach. In Africa, the importance of marketing-driven practices in improving the delivery of healthcare services cannot be overemphasized. The issue of healthcare delivery and management is significant for policymakers, private sector players, and consumers of health-related services in developing economy contexts. Scholars have strongly argued in favor of marketing and value creation in healthcare service delivery in Africa. Each country in Africa has its own issues. For example, long waiting times, unavailable medications, and unfriendly staff are just a sampling of issues affecting the acceptability of healthcare services. These examples highlight the need to utilize marketing and value creation tools in the delivery of healthcare services. Furthermore, there is a need for the integration of service marketing and management principles to enhance the delivery of quality healthcare across Africa and other developing economies which is the critical focus of this book. This book responds to calls for quality healthcare service management practices or processes from developing economy perspectives. Focusing primarily on African and other developing economy contexts, this book covers seven thematic areas: strategy in healthcare; marketing imperatives in healthcare management; product and pricing management in healthcare; distribution and marketing communications in healthcare; managing people in healthcare; physical evidence and service quality management in healthcare; and process management in healthcare.

Customer Service Essentials
Customer Service Essentials

Author: Robert E. Hinson

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1641136871

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Customer Service Essentials is a must-read and a definitive source of information on effective management of customer service in Africa and beyond. Leveraging on unique concepts and practices developed in the field of customer service management, this book uses case studies and vignettes to reinforce learnings, drawing parallels to real life experiences. The book is a valuable resource for individuals and organizations, in the quest to achieve excellent customer service, increased productivity and enhanced employee satisfaction. It explores the practical challenges of customer service in Africa, examines critical success factors and provides guidelines for effective customer engagement in this evolving highly networked digital era. Policy makers, directors, managers and students will gain valuable and actionable insights on service management as they navigate the chapters. Praise for Customer Service Essentials: Lessons for Africa and Beyond "This book captures service excellence by detailing out in a most explicit manner essential services dynamics of Responsiveness, Accessibility, Tangibles, Empathy and Reliability. I highly recommend it!" Esi Elliot Assistant Professor, Marketing Suffolk University, Boston, MA "I am very impressed with this book and excited to see the topics being discussed in the Chapters are geared toward quality customer service in Africa. All the chapters are superbly written, relevant to the African context and above all, the authors cover incredibly interesting topics and support them with pertinent cases. Bringing together such fine minds in the field, this book is useful and a must for anyone serious about customer service, service branding and the need to respect the customer." Charles Blankson Professor of Marketing College of Business University of North Texas "Hinson and colleagues have skillfully put together a useful collection of new perspectives on modern customer service essentials with an African and global perspective. This is a highly recommended text for students and practitioners." Ellis L.C. Osabutey Reader Roehampton University Business School United Kingdom

Managing Performance in the Public Sector
Managing Performance in the Public Sector

Author: Gerrit Van der Waldt

Publisher: Juta and Company Ltd

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9780702165160

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Monitoring and ensuring effective, efficient, and economic use of resources in the public sector is addressed in this critical analysis. The importance of tracking performance for good governance is considered, as are the benefits of designing a departmental and human performance management system. Particular attention is paid to the difficult task of measuring worker performance in the public sector, where a wide array of unquantifiable variables must be examined. Various performance models, such as the Excellence Foundation and the Balance Scorecard, provide an invaluable resource of concepts, considerations, and challenges for improving public sector performance.

The V-Model of Service Quality
The V-Model of Service Quality

Author: Grafton Whyte

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 1787696057

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The V-Model of Service Quality offers a powerful tool for measuring service quality. This book grounds the theoretical interventions in data drawn from case studies in the Sub-Saharan African context to make the models applicable to both researchers and working managers.

Customer Service
Customer Service

Author: Emmanuel Danstan Chinunda

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2013-11-29

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1493138294

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Customer Service: The Kingpin of Business Success in Africa is a must read as it communicates how the power of customer service can revolutionise business on the African continent. The book uses proverbs and wise sayings to captivate the reader into action. The book captures both the African and Western experience to position the reader as a global player in the world of customer service. The book is a change agent and provides a platform how customer service can transform the African continent. The uniqueness of the book is that it uses both Western and African proverbs to help the reader to gain insight into the African culture. It stresses, motivates and inspires the reader to bring revolution to his or her world of service. You will surely bring transformation to your world after mastering the mysteries buried in this book. Its concepts are simple and easy to follow and drive you into business success.

Multilingualism and the Public Sector in South Africa
Multilingualism and the Public Sector in South Africa

Author: Munene Mwaniki

Publisher: AFRICAN SUN MeDIA

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1920383247

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Multilingualism and the Public Sector in South Africa contributes to the discourse on language in South Africa with a specific focus on multilingualism and the public sector. The book argues for and demonstrates the relevance of putting into place appropriate language policies to help the majority of the people of South Africa take an active part in nation-building endeavours; processes in which the public sector is key. The discussion tackles the intricacies of the public sector from a constitutional; legislative and policy; human resource and organisational culture; capital and infrastructure point of view; and builds a case for the provision of multilingual services in the public sector ? as the benchmark of public sector service provision. ?This is a very useful piece of work in terms of its contribution to the general field of language and development. The author is arguing for and demonstrating the relevance of putting into place appropriate language policies to help a majority of the people of South Africa take an active part in nation-building. This can be done through many channels, and the Public Sector is one of the key areas that need to take up this challenge... Many people, linguists included, speak of the relevance of language and multilingualism, but very few are able to illustrate it in an area of relevance such as the Public Sector. This is research that will be of interest to specialists for sure, but also to the layman simply interested in finding out more about the relevance of multilingualism to society; not just in terms of social and cultural heritage, but also in terms of its contribution to an improved economic output? Paulin DJIT�, School of Humanities and Languages, University of Western Sydney ? Australia

Social Accountability in Africa
Social Accountability in Africa

Author: Mario Claasen

Publisher: African Books Collective

Published: 2010-05-01

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1920409378

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Social Accountability in Africa: Practitioners Experiences and Lessons is a collection of case studies from Africa on social accountability. This collection attempts to build a consolidated body of knowledge on social accountability efforts across the continent. The case studies are diverse and present unique approaches to how social accountability strategies and interventions are implemented within different countries. The book is written by practitioners, for practitioners, providing first hand experience of designing and implementing social accountability initiatives and the challenges, methods and successes each one presents.

Electronic Government Strategies and Implementation
Electronic Government Strategies and Implementation

Author: Huang, Wayne

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2004-09-30

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1591403502

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Digital government is a new frontier of the development of electronic commerce. Electronic Government Strategies and Implementation is a timely piece to address the issues involved in strategically implementing digital government, covering the various aspects of digital government strategic issues and implementations from the perspectives of both developed and developing countries. This book combines e-government implementation experiences from both developed and developing countries, and is useful to researchers and practitioners in the area as well as instructors teaching courses related to digital government and/or electronic commerce.