The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) presented its 2008/ 2009 Annual Report in parliament last week, identifying which service providers have received the most complaints.
According to an article on MyBroadband, ICASA processed a total of 2 155 complaints over the last year. Telkom received the largest proportion of these complaints (21%), Cell [...]

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Guest post by Marcel Oudejans
With advent of virtually instant global communication, the consumer is gaining an advantage: the ability to make an informed decision based not just on the seller’s sales methods but also on previous customers’ experiences. Customers are learning that they have rights and that they can support or reject a supplier [...]

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Guest post by Marcel Oudejans.
Say less.
Listen more.
It’s been said that the reason we have 2 ears and 1 mouth is to remind us to listen twice as much as we talk.
Frequently, an angry or disappointed customer simply wants to feel that she is important enough to be listened to: while this may not necessarily solve [...]

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Guest post by Marcel Oudejans.
It’s in our nature to become defensive when we’re criticized – who likes to be told that their work is not up to standard or that they have not met someone’s expectations? In business however, it would be a mistake to take a customer complaint personally: for the most part, that [...]

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It is common sense to most of us that customer retention is the best way to ensure your business survives – of ‘recession proofing’ your business. Paradoxically it can seem common sense to cut customer service costs and customer retention costs during hard times. It may be that cost-cutting across the board is necessary to [...]

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Guest post by Marcel Oudejans.
One of the key elements of delivering fantastic customer service is to prove that you are consistently trust-worthy. Recent events have caused many people to question the level of trust that they have put into banks, consultants, salespeople & even politicians!  It’s understandable that customers get so irate when they [...]

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getclosure! is using consumer feedback to rate the customer-centricity of suppliers.  This new rating system provides a nifty way for consumers to compare suppliers and to assess each supplier’s customer-centricity with others in the same industry.
According to Wikipedia, customer-centricity refers to “the orientation of a company to the needs and behaviours [...]

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It will be interesting to see how South African suppliers adapt over the coming months and years as the international financial situation evolves and impacts local markets. The extent of the international financial turmoil still has a long way to go but I have no doubt that local suppliers of goods and services [...]

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We’ve all been swamped in negative stuff about the tough economy, shaky politics (if any) and to cap it all, bad sports performances. Sometimes it’s a struggle to stay positive. And hard to be hopeful that things will get better. But if you tuned in to 702 Talk Radio this week, like I did, you might have had the same feel [...]

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Guest post by Marcel Oudejans
As every successful business owner knows, it is vitally important that your customers speak highly of you.  ‘Word-of-mouth’ advertising is considered to be the most effective and profitable form of marketing, as happy customers are likely to talk highly about your business to their families, friends and colleagues: social proof [...]

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