By Correspondent
THE Chartered Institute of Customer Management (CICM) in collaboration with Select Research (Pvt) Limited will this month launch the second edition of the National Customer Satisfaction Index.
The launch is scheduled for February 23, in Harare.
The NCSI essentially measures the quality of economic output as a complement to traditional measures of the quantity of economic output.
CICM chief executive Ms Ricky Harris said that local firms can use the NCSI as a tool to optimize customer satisfaction, which in turn drives customer loyalty and thereby corporate profitability. The Index also is used for competitive and cross-industry benchmarking.
“It’s also critical for foreign investors who need to understand the relationship between a company’s current condition and its future capacity to produce wealth. In capitalistic free markets, sellers that do well by their customers are rewarded by more business from buyers and more capital from investors,” she said.
It is the country’s scientific standard of customer satisfaction. NCSI 2017 will be launched within a context of anticipated rise in total aggregate demand in the country this year.
Zimbabwe’s consumption declined from 80, 59% of total gross domestic product in 2016 to around 76, 42% last year attributable to declining disposable incomes and rising unemployment rates.
But considering the new political dispensation, consumer demand is expected to increase this year going forward.
Such a development will necessitate both manufacturers and service providers to become more innovative to exploit these opportunities.
The NCSI – an independent national benchmark of customer satisfaction of the quality of products and services – is therefore critical insofar as benefits players in both the public and private sectors within the local economy, as well as foreign investors eyeing the country’s markets.
The inaugural NCSI, which was launched last year, revealed that Zimbabwe’s customer satisfaction index current ranking averaged at 75.5%, which was positive.