Book Review: First customer care

“What is this culture of mediocrity, we keep talking about customer service-we have identified the problem but we don’t do anything about it…,” President Paul Kagame said, according to one of the quotes from this book. In this essence, we must now embark on focusing our efforts in fighting back customer care culture and the best way we will do this is equipping ourselves in knowledge of the subject. Customer care trainer, Iddosou, who has 10-years experience in collaboration with Private Sector Federation (PSF), recently launched the first ever Rwandan Handbook on customer care to begin the journey of transforming customer care in the country. “We know that there is a problem in customer services in the country presently, we need top begin finding solutions for this,” says Iddosou. The 10-years experience in customer care and marketing in over 19 African countries, Iddosou has tailored the book to fit Rwandan setup by exploring examples within Rwandese context. “I started writing this book two years ago after realising the great hunger people had to learn more in customer care from my trainings in the country,” Iddosou notes. The hand book is a timely and simple introduction to customer care and its preliquistites; it is a valuable resource to any organization and individual business owners attempting to improve their customer handling techniques it provides a straightforward review of relevant customer care topics such as communication tips, attitudes, roles of contact persons, telephone etiquette, dealing with complains and so on. “The handbook is an easy to understand, one day read that has been designed for anyone who comes in contact with customers from private, public sectors to retail shops,” says Iddosou. The handbook she says will also be useful for vocational schools trainings and in other institutions so as to engage people in challenging their knowledge of the subject. Iddosou says that the main challenge following the launch is Rwandans poor reading culture. “The 46 page book is an easy read with interesting pictures all meant to encourage readership, I challenge Rwandans to read the handbook for a positive change in customer care,” says Iddosou. The book comes at a time when the National steering committee in the process of launching a customer care campaign. Director of Membership events and communication PSF Yvette Mukarwema said “This book will be an educational tool in customer care, and will be used in support of the campaign coming up,” Yvette implores Rwandans to read the book so that they can understand what is expected of them when handling their customers since many people have remained ignorant of it. Iddosou notes that the book comes to challenge people to engage in dialogue and to identify avenues present to better customer services in the country. The handbook comes also as a gift to the companies that will be voted as practising best customer care practice during the ongoing trade fair. Its retail price stands at RWF 3000 in libraries and bookshops country wide a subsidised price by RDB. According to Iddosou, the handbook first 5000 print copies are in Kinyarwanda and English 5000 copies each. The edition will be followed by many related ones. Ends

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Book Review: First customer care