Stakeholders advocate for unified effort to enhance end-to-end customer service
By Felicia Nwosu
In a bid to enhance customer experiences, stakeholders have called for a collaborative effort across various sectors to enhance end-to-end customer service by prioritizing transparency to enable them build positive reputation, improve customer satisfaction, and foster long-term trust.
Speaking during an interview with MARKETING EDGE, they advocated that this collective approach is essential for creating a resilient, inclusive, and customercentric business environment aimed at building long-term customer relationships.
Professor Pius Olarenwaju, President of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, emphasized the importance of businesses improving their interactions with customers by offering comprehensive and transparent information.
He stressed that fair practices and a culture of openness are crucial for fostering trust.
“We need to work collaboratively to ensure businesses adopt adequate measures that prevent issues which could damage customer relationships. For us to be able to get this done, we need to be ethical, we need to build trust, and also we need the esteem of all the stakeholders in the industry to work together as a team. One of the things we have been able to establish is the need for all the stakeholders to be aware and to examine individual roles.”
Consumer Rights Advocate Sola Salako-Ajulo, a Federal Commissioner at the Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal (CCPT), highlighted a significant gap in the financial sector, where institutions often prioritize their protection over customer needs.
She called for a balanced approach where businesses not only protect themselves but also provide customers with clear information about their protections and risks.
“Businesses need to show customers that they care and provide necessary information to make informed decisions. This is the problem that we have in the financial sector. Most of, like 95% or 98% of their protection is for themselves, they are not looking out for what the customer is getting, not just the financial institutions, every business, they need to pay a lot more attention to what the customer also needs. Just as they are protecting themselves, they should show the customer that I care about you.”
Charles Nwachukwu, General Manager of Cornerstone, underscored the importance of first impressions and consistent transparency in building customer trust. He advocated for deliberate efforts to improve customer relationships by providing clear, accurate information.
“Trust is built over time through transparency. When customers are well-informed and trust the business, they are more likely to continue their patronage.
“If your customers don’t trust you, of course, they are not going to come back to renew those businesses with you and all that, so you find out that insurance is all about trust as well, your customers must trust you in the entire industry, any business that must succeed, must be founded on trust and transparency. When customers are happy, they bring their transactions more, and you find out that at the end of the day, you’re also making profit.”
Uju Ogubunka, Former Registrar/CEO of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, stressed that businesses must comply with regulatory standards and actively listen to customer feedback.
He pointed out that addressing customer pain points through clear communication and adherence to corporate governance codes is vital for minimizing complaints and enhancing customer satisfaction.
“Businesses should strive to ensure that customers have no complaints by providing them with all necessary information to make informed decisions.
“If you remove the customers, there will be no business, so it should be in the interest of business to make sure that their customers have no complaints at all, but what do we see? We see a situation where so many customers are complaining of one thing or the other.
If you come to corporate governance, we have a corporate governance code in the industry, do they obey it, we have guidelines on ethics and professionalism. If you are serving a group of people and every time somebody is complaining of one thing or the other, it means they are not doing very well. You should sit back and ask yourself, what is it , that I am not doing right, he stated.
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