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News Archive June 2011 Customer care in spotlight
| Customer care in spotlight |
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| Tuesday, 28 June 2011 |
Intensive training is being undertaken of station staff to cultivate a culture of customer service excellence.
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STATION staff has been receiving intensive customer care training to improve the service they provide at Rea Vaya facilities.
The latest training session took place on 13 June at the Johannesburg Roads Agency headquarters on Sauer Street, where a group of about 20 employees were put through their paces.
Rea Vaya project manager, Jacques van Zijl, visited the training session and stressed the importance of building the brand. "Employees need to know the value of the service they are providing," he said. "We are all part of the Rea Vaya family and we need to have pride in what we are doing."
As it was the first Bus Rapid Transit system in the country, they were guinea pigs to a certain extent, Van Zijl explained. Cities such as Cape Town and Tshwane would introduce their own systems and therefore looked to Johannesburg for guidance and how to get the job done. He wanted their example to be an unbeatable one.
As such, the organisation has been interacting with users through its website, Facebook page, Twitter presence and suggestion boxes in stations to find out what changes their customers would most like to see. The first batch of feedback from the suggestion boxes had just been collated, Van Zijl said, and there were suggestions that station officials needed to know the bus timetables.
"Information is one of the first things you are responsible for, even though that is not your only responsibility," he said. "You remain the most important person at the station because you need to provide customers with information."
These officials and marshals have a great deal to do with the way people perceive Rea Vaya, and Van Zijl believes there is room for improvement. "We can create something great here, and I am enthusiastic, but we all need to be part of it.
"We need to have our eyes open to see what we can do to best make passengers comfortable," he said.
This eye-opening was to be provided by the customer care training, which was facilitated by Mandate Molefi, a human resources company. Bronson Hlatshwayo, a facilitator and life coach at the HR company, led the day-long session.
Participation was mandatory to reach the objectives of the course, which were providing a solid foundation for customer care; cultivating a culture of customer service excellence; sharing knowledge and skills of providing exceptional customer service; and providing a platform to engage in empowering activities.
An integrated approach was used, with three levels comprising customer care, according to Hlatshwayo. These are intra/interpersonal, systemic/organisational and client/stakeholder levels. While each level is equally as important as the next when providing a service, the day's training focused specifically on the intra/interpersonal level.
"We are building a good foundation," he said. This foundation included the station staffs' personal values and how they fit in with the company's culture.
"Culture is a driver of operational and financial performance, while value informs behaviour and acts like a compass, giving you directions on how to behave in certain situations," Hlatshwayo said. By aligning personal and business values, they would be able to get the most out of the company, he added.
Because of the amount of training to get through, another session has been planned for July; it will be a half-day gathering.
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