An evaluation of effective customer care management at Buffalo city municipality: a case study

• Main Author: Asiedu, Benjamin
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University 2011
• Subjects: Customer services > South Africa > Management; Municipal services > South Africa > Eastern Cape > Case studies; Civil service reform > South Africa
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/7947

In 1994, the new democratic South African government realised the magnitude of its service delivery problem and the urgency with which it needed to solve it. Emphasis was placed on better life for all. The local government, with regard to ensuring better life all, has since adopted the Batho-Pele principles and incorporated them into customer care to deliver a better life for all. However, recent service delivery reports in the Daily Dispatch and its sister publication Go & Express as well as service delivery protests across the country (including BCM) indicate all is not well. Many hypothesises have been raised as to why municipalities continue to under-perform. However, beyond these hypothesises is customer care management, and its constituents of customer service, complaint management and call centre activities. Customer care in the public sector has long been seen as the work of front-line staff. Others believe it is irrelevant in the public service due to the non-competitive nature of public service. Batho-Pele principles, since its inception in the public sector in South Africa, have been drummed up to put people first. Weary citizens see it differently and this has not escaped Buffalo City Municipality (BCM). BCM, one of the pioneers in the South African local government to have initiated customer care, admits there is institutional inefficiency. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of customer care management at BCM. In doing so; the study has narrowed the study to: describing the practice of customer care and customer care management in the public sector ( BCM included), establishing the components that constitute an integrated customer care management programme at BCM, investigating and describing the conceptual understanding of customer care and customer care management at BCM, and exploring and describing the role vision and values statements play in rendering a successful customer care programme at local government level with BCM as the focal point.