Do you know how to keep your customers happy? Awards to laud SA companies with the best service

Which South African companies are providing their customers with the most exceptional service?

All will be revealed Tuesday night with the announcement of the 2016 Ask Afrika Orange Index, now in its 15th year.

What I can reveal without breaking the embargo is the fact that not a single cellphone network made it into the Top 10 this year, which Ask Afrika MD Sarina de Beer singled out as the “most significant shift” in this year’s results.

As someone whose job involves dealing with consumer complaints, that comes as no surprise.

Four car brands feature in the coveted Top 10 and two private hospital groups.

The independently audited ranking of 136 companies - distilled from 15 000 interviews about 228 companies across 33 industries - provide a snapshot of what South Africans consider to be excellent service.

“The index is quite is quite revealing about the way South Africans think,” de Beer says.

“South Africans are very open to change. For brands that means if someone’s not getting what they want from a brand, they’ll look around for something better.”

Not only are we consumers less tolerant of bad service than a decade or even five years ago, the pace of social media has made us impatient and self help channels such as mobile banking have us expecting more of call centres.

“So when we do decide to pick up a phone, it represents a huge escalation,” de Beer says. And if the call centre agent can’t help, the disappointment and sense of disconnection is huge."

But the biggest new trend is consumers' expectation that brands address societal issues. “They want companies to share their values,” de Beer says.

“So it’s a case of ‘if you value me as a customer, don’t send me a birthday SMS, build a school in my area'.”

Some companies fared well when it came to good service; others on the feel good factor, but it was those who did both well which got the high scores.

“Customer service is just one dimension; it’s not enough on its own,” de Beer says. “Consumers are increasingly after a strong emotional connection. They must feel it, and it must be consistent.”

One of the index’s newer benchmarks is fairness. “Fairness isn’t positively rewarded, because it is anticipated,” de Beer says.

“Yet once a customer feels they have been unfairly treated, it can quickly become a culminating snowball of negativity.”

Consumers in some regions of the country are a lot more critical and hard to please than others, a direct link with their general happiness levels, de Beer says.

More on that with the results after Tuesday’s big reveal.