Good corporate image Awards instituted

Accra, Aug. 31, GNA – An award scheme for Ghanaian organisations and institutions with good corporate image and offering benchmark for their counterparts to improve and excel on their performance has been instituted.

The Excellent Service Benchmark Awards (ESBAs) is a unique awards scheme designed to recognise, encourage and reward the efforts of organisations in Ghana offering excellence in aspects of customer service or other services.

Ms Adwoa Serwaa-Bonsu, Project Coordinator, addressing a Media Launch in Accra said “The Benchmark Awards is based on the premise that to improve service in Ghana, best practices must be recognised and within the limits of possibility, replicated in other organisations”.

She said it would identify and recognise organisations operating in Ghana, which were the best in a specific area of customer service, and help organisations to identify their strengths and weaknesses as well as providing benchmarks and guidance to help them improve on performance.

The awards scheduled for Saturday, February 25, 2012 is jointly being organised by ExSellers International and CapitalLine Investments.

Categories for the awards are, Most Customer-friendly Team, Best in Telephone Etiquettes, Best Groomed Customer Service Team, Most Customer-friendly Business Premises and Creativity for Customer Service Award.

The rest are Best Use of Technology in Customer Service, Most Heroic Customer Service Act, Most Responsive to Customer Complaints, Cleanest Business Premises, Promptest in Service Delivery Award, Best in After-sales Service and Support and Most Customer-friendly website.

Industry awards would be for Telecommunications, Oil and Gas, Banking and Finance, Insurance, Media, Hospitality, Aviation and Air Travel, Automobile, Health and Wellness.

Ms Serwaa-Bonsu said individuals or corporate entities could nominate institutions or organisations for the awards after which researchers would be sent to all nominated companies to report on issues pertaining to the category they were nominated for.

“When all data are made available, a panel made up of industry experts will vet the reports and choose the winners,” she added.

Each winner will receive an exclusive award package, which includes information and special benefits appropriate to the category of the award presented, and the overall best award is the Green Star.

Ms Serwaa-Bonsu noted that the award would be the beginning for good benchmarking in Ghana and would put institutions and organisations on their toes, adding that, “It is customers who pay institutions and organisations and not the institutions and organisations paying customers”.

Mr Jerry Nathaniel Halm, Head, Customer Service and Public Relations, National Investment Bank stressed the need for customer service to change in the country and that the awards would be a search for excellence in customer service.

He explained that customer service cuts across the entire country in all endeavours, therefore, there was the need for individuals, institutions and organisations to look for standards and understanding what was pertaining in other institutions and organizations to improve on their performance.

“Corporate Ghana does not care about its performance because the average Ghanaian customer does not complain, but the extreme customer complains. Ghanaians do not complain but neighbours in the West African Sub-Region are aggressive,” he added.

Mr Halm urged corporate Ghana to embrace customer service benchmarking to eliminate guess work, and in addition, expose strengths and weaknesses in institutions and organisations.

He noted that good benchmarking would eliminate excuses for mediocre services and the awards would achieve the desired impact when business leaders assessed their performance and improve on opportunities available.

“The awards should provide corporate Ghana with valuable data to provoke thoughtful discussions in the country,” he added.

Mrs Edwina Atta-Sonoo, Customer Experience Manager, Standard Chartered, said customers determined the quality of services rendered by any institution and their perception were the realities on the ground.

She explained that when the customer was not satisfied, then the institution was not performing and that customer service begun from the main entrance to the reception before the offices of management.

Mrs Atta-Sonoo said achieving excellence depended on discipline, ownership, performance, productivity and empowerment and should be the key factors to achieve benchmark excellence in any institution or organisation.

GNA