Creating Customer Service Orientation in Public Sector

Dr. Oyewole O. Sarumi

Introduction

The time has come for the authorities in government to realise the importance of using human talent purposefully and gainfully in order to create a culture of customer service orientation in public sector institutes and industries.

Most of the MDA’s when they come up with master plans for development, they have hardly paid any attention towards CS.

Being proactive in fostering customer service orientation in public services will lead the country towards the expected economic development.

Is there is a possibility to expect ‘real’ customer service from Government services?

In recent time, vast improvements in cleanliness, infrastructure developments by way of road constructions, flyovers, city beautifications, trapping traffic offenders and reckless drivers through enabling laws etc.

What we now need to support all the economic spearheading is ‘public sector customer service’ as a way of life.

Importance of public sector customer service

It is through outstanding customer service that a business can establish a ‘distinct sustainable differentiation’.

Most businesses today maintain a reputation for their intense focus and high standards of quality in their deliverables.

In any organisation the commitment to customer service begins at the top. The organisations’ leaders must buy into the fact that they not only need to meet their customer’s expectations, but actually strive to exceed them. They must develop a company culture that understands this concept.

Most of public servants have wrong ‘mindset’ that those who seek for their services are not customers in the real sense.

Several Government servants do not accept the point that the people they deal with are the same as those who go to supermarkets and/or who are served as ‘kings’ and ‘queens’ by private sector suppliers of goods and services. Thus, they may be rather reluctant to refer to them as their customers.

The difficulty with this resistance is that if we don’t consider the public as our “customers,” we face the risk of acting in bureaucratic, non-responsive ways. Resistance to the use of the word “customer” is generally based on an inaccurate notion of what the word customer means, in retail, service or public sectors.