EZULWINI – Customer experience should not be left to one department within an organisation, but treated as a responsibility shared by everyone who interacts with customers, a Zimbabwean research practitioner has said.
Patson Gasura, who was speaking at the 11th Customer Service Experience Conference at SibaneSami Hotel, said businesses often focus heavily on customer service without considering the full experience a customer has with the organisation.
Delivering a presentation titled Beyond Customer Satisfaction: Turning Customer Experience Research into Customer Loyalty and Business Growth, Gasura said customer service was only one part of the customer journey.
“Customer experience is everybody’s responsibility,” he said, stressing that every employee who is visible to customers can contribute to either a positive or negative experience.
Gasura said organisations should therefore look beyond whether a product or service was delivered and consider how customers felt throughout their interaction with the business.
He identified three basic elements that can make a significant difference: acknowledgement, engagement and service.
He said customers should feel recognised when they arrive, engaged through meaningful interaction and ultimately receive the service they came for.
To illustrate the point, Gasura shared an experience at an airport in South Africa where passengers faced delays of more than an hour without clear communication or an apology. Although he rated the airline’s service highly, he gave his overall experience a much lower rating because of how the situation was handled.
He also recounted having a meal at a local establishment where the food arrived late and cold. While the food itself was enjoyable, he said the lack of acknowledgement or engagement from staff affected the overall experience.
Gasura said such examples showed that improving customer experience did not always require expensive or complicated interventions.
“Research does not decide. Research is an aid to decision-making,” he said, emphasising that businesses must use customer feedback to identify problems and act on them.
He urged organisations to continuously measure customer experience and ensure that the findings lead to meaningful improvements, rather than collecting information simply for the sake of research.
Gasura said leadership also had an important role to play in creating a customer-focused culture, as customer experience ultimately affects customer retention, loyalty and business growth.
