Customer care is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. According to Turban et al. (2002), “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction — that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation”.
Customer experience simply defined is the sum of all experiences at various touch points a customer has with a supplier of goods and/or services, over the duration of their relationship with that supplier.
This can include awareness, discovery, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy. A company’s ability to deliver service and an experience that sets it apart from the competition in the eyes of its customers serves to, optimally, inspire loyalty to its brand.
“Loyalty,” says Jessica Sebor, “is now driven primarily by a company’s interaction with its customers and how well it delivers on their wants and needs.” (2008) [2]
There is an evolution worldwide from being customer service oriented organisations to being customer experience centric. At ZOL we are focusing more on our customers and working on making the experience delightful.
Given that experiences drive loyalty and after all is said and done, in this cut throat world of business, and promotions and incentivised offers, what an organisation will rely on for survival is LOYALTY more than SATISFACTION.
It is that one element that will have your customers sticking with you through thick and thin, because you have formed a relationship that appeals to their emotional psyche.
We are taking all the feedback we have been gathering over the last couple of months and starting to work on what will be world class unforgettable customer experience at any one of our touch points.
Great strides have been made to improve customer care in our contact centre, our technology is focused on providing the most efficient service to our customers thereby saving them time and money.
Driven by the mantra “We treat every single customer as though they are our last”, every effort will be made to please and redeem ourselves in the eyes of our customers especially the ones who are not too happy with service given in the past.
And for those who are already delighted, we are committed to continually delight them for a long time to come.
We realise the two things our clients value are their time and their money, so we started with implementation of a world class queue management system with intelligent number recognition which allows you to hold a place in the call queue while you wait for assistance and if for whatever reason you can’t hold, when you call back your position in the queue is restored.
What this means is . . .
Life doesn’t come to a complete standstill while waiting for ZOL support.
No more airtime being spent while holding, (free calls to our support number 08677123123 from Econet and ZOL VoIP lines. The other networks are a work in progress and we ask you to watch this space for more details.)
We are also recording some pretty impressive all time low call holding times for call centres in the country and benchmarked against international standards.
We have alternative channels for support via email on our myZOL app, support@zol.co.zw and instant live support chats with our customer care personnel from our webpage www.zol.co.zw.
myZOL app brings ZOL to the customer allowing the customer management their account, access up to date tech news, interact with our teams on the ground amongst many other functions.
Walk in centres
All our walk in centres are revamped and with a fresh clean look, and are all easily accessible at Borrowdale, East gate, Westgate, Mutare and Bulawayo.
Nationwide footprint
We are pleased to announce that the full range of ZOL services are also now accessible from selected Econet stores nationwide . . . this list will be getting longer as the year progresses.
Chitungwiza
Avondale
Gweru
Vic Falls
Masvingo
Mutare
And for your convenience you can pay your ZOL bills from any Econet shop anywhere in the country. They have direct integration with our billing system so all you need is your ZOL ID and your life is easy.
Payment options
We are encouraging the use of our newly launched safe and secure alternate payment options as opposed to coming to the shops — saves time and money. Again, there’s that focus on the top two valued customer attributes.
Ecocash, PayNow — where you can pay using your Mastercard and Visa cards, will allow you to make your payments from the convenience of your office, house, or car even.
Register for myZOL, our online portal which gives you access to your account and you can check your account status, your invoices, payments credited for reconciliation and do a little administrative work on your account.
ZOL Zimbabwe, is bringing the heat, we commit ourselves to continually improving on service delivery because this is the one thing that will set us apart from the rest. Never mind the fact that we are already carrying a superior quality product.
We have come a long way but we acknowledge we have an uphill road ahead, and we are ready for the challenge.
In the wise words of Vin Scully and our CEO’s favourite mantra, “good is not good where better is expected”.
We are encouraged to do better every single day because that keeps raising the bar of service excellence even higher.
So come and ZOLOn, you deserve to live like this!!!!