With an increasing number of UAE investors looking for inroads into Africa, one of the continent’s leading customer satisfaction experts has urged companies to tailor their products and services and prioritise the customer experience to succeed in the fast-growing African market.
Professor Adré Schreuder, founder and chairman of The South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi), the republic’s only independent customer satisfaction benchmark, says research in Africa shows the customer experience has now surpassed price as the purchasing driver as the continent’s consumers become more demanding.
“Customers have higher expectations on value for money – perceived value – which is a combination of a good value proposition – product and service – at a fair or reasonable price. The correlation towards price tolerance for higher price is also clear: extra–ordinary customer experiences would be rewarded with a willingness to pay some premium on the price.”
UAE companies seeking expansion within the continent already include Etisalat, Jumeirah and DP World with growing air links capitalising on an upsurge of interest in African opportunities. Yet Prof. Schreuder, who’s also CEO of Consulta, Africa’s only consumer insights consultancy, says success in the continent’s 54 nations is not simply a case of setting up shop. Products and services, he says, need tailoring to local demand.
“It goes back to the basic customer centric principle of knowing your customers. With the modern trend toward more emphasis on the customer experience before, during and after purchase, the role of emotions cannot be ignored and it is a known fact that there are cross cultural and cross segment differences in needs, expectation as well as emotions.”
Prof. Schreuder says the UAE and African markets now share a mounting focus on the customer experience to boost and retain market share in increasingly competitive landscapes flush with mobility-and-buying savvy consumers.
“There’s a realisation that true differentiation comes from legendary customer experience and the average African consumer has now, more than ever before, access to the rest of the world through mobile technology. People are more connected and no longer tolerate sub-standard products that in the past were dumped on the African continent. Some of the fastest growing economies are now in the African continent and that’s underlying the spending power and increasingly higher consumer expectations. Our own SA Customer Satisfaction Index research that we use in a majority of African countries shows very comparable levels of customer expectations among consumers. A look at Google analytics’ analysis of search terms related to customer satisfaction, customer experience, customer service and the like, reveals that most search activity now comes from prominent African countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Ghana.”
Prof. Schreuder says though market research growth in Africa is currently one of the world’s highest, too many investors have still not grasped the need to locally tailor their product and service offering.
“The diversity and unique customer needs and expectations cannot merely be derived from European, US, Asian or Gulf markets. There are many sad cases of companies which have under estimated the diversity and uniqueness of the African continent. And with that I need to emphasise that I do not believe there is an African Market – there are many diverse and unique markets in the African continent, not necessarily following clear geographic boundaries of countries. Access to different segments and markets on the African continent should therefore be approached from a market perspective and should not be stereotyped. Investors need to identify the segments and markets, through proper and thorough market research, evaluate the market potential, needs, expectations, preferences, channels and media habits of each segment before a choice of target market is made. The local conditions and access to these markets differ between regions on the African continent.”
Prof. Schreuder was speaking ahead of his visit to the UAE later this year in his role as a judge in the Ethos Integrated Solutions’ Service Olympian Awards, the only independent honours which recognise the Gulf’s customer service leaders. The 2015 awards, which are free-to-enter for public and private sector organisations are open for applications, via www.serviceolympian.com, until October 15th.
Prof. Schreuder says the award-winners will be the type of organisations whose commitment to customer experience excellence would make them fit to export their brand, products and services to the burgeoning African markets.
“Through a recent study done with CFOs of large corporations in Africa it was evident that customer experience expectations is one of the highest new priorities for businesses in African countries. Totally unique, innovative and disruptive go-to-market strategies is also a trend whilst companies are challenged with different retail and distribution networks compared to elsewhere. It is believed that although some African markets are late adopters of some product and services categories – mobile, social media – the adoption usually follows rapid growth and acceptance. Mobile and financial services seems to be one of the fastest growing industries in many of the countries and with the economic success of some of the top African countries consumer spending underpins the buoyant market conditions there.”
This year there are 18 Service Olympian honours up for grabs all built around Ethos’ proven Customer Experience Implementation model which focuses on defining, designing, developing and deploying a standout customer experience strategy then measuring the outcomes and innovating for future improvement and commitment.
The awards include: Best Customer Experience Strategy; Best Customer Experience Journey Maps; Best Customer Experience Employee Engagement; Best Employee Customer Experience Delivery; Best Customer Communications; Best Customer Engagement; Best Customer Loyalty; Best Customer Education; Best Employee Learning; Best Customer Experience Measurement; Best Complaint Management; Best Use of Measurement for Improvement; Best Service Innovation; Best Customer Experience SMART Applications; Best use of Social Media; Best use of Technology to benefit Customers; Leadership Commitment and Best Customer Experience Delivered.
And the 2015 awards also feature a People’s Choice honur with the public voting online for the organisation it believes delivers the best customer service. People voting in the People’s Choice category also go into a draw for a chance to win an iPad each month until November.
Prof. Schreuder joins a powerful Service Olympian judging panel which also includes: Robert Keay, CEO of Ethos Integrated Solutions can co-founder of The International Customer Service Institute (TICSI); Philip Forrest, Chairman of the European Business Awards and TICSI President and Dr. Alaa Garad, Chairman of the Advisory Board, University of Salford UAE and CEO, Investors in People, UAE. The 2015 Service Olympian Customer Experience Awards, the second in the series, will be presented in a gala ceremony at the prestigious Burj Al Arab hotel on December 8.