FEATURE20 Friday, October 26 2018 BUSINESS REPORT

© Bestmed Medical Scheme 2018

Bestmed Medical Scheme is a registered medical scheme (Reg. no. 1252) and an Authorised Financial Services Provider (FSP no. 44058).

Bestmed has been voted as one of the top three schemes across the industry in the prestigious Ask Afrika Orange Index® survey.

“The health and satisfaction of our members has always been a priority and our personalised and customer-focussed services allows us to do so, hence the launch of our new brand promise, Personally Yours” says Elmarie Jooste, Client Relations Executive Manager at Bestmed.

Bestmed Medical Scheme, South Africa’s fourth largest open medical scheme and the largest self-administered scheme that is run by members for members, essentially what that means is that, as a member, the Scheme answers to you as a member and that you’re not just a number!

I would recommend this medical aid to anyone-and quite frequently do! I never have

problems with payments, it is in inexpensive and has great scheme options and I have never had a rude word from their consultants. When the tax increased, this year, Bestmed took the burden on themselves instead of increasing the payments! I go to the doctor/optometrist/dentist and pharmacy without fear. Thank you for a great service!

For a tailored and personalised quote, contact:

012 472 6461

newbusiness@bestmed.co.za

www.bestmed.co.za

BESTMED,

ONE OF THE

TOP THREE MEDICAL SCHEMES

IN SOUTH AFRICA

“

“Service excellence celebrated at Ask Afrika Orange Index AwardsTHE service industry is transforming as we enter the fourth digital revolution and it is important for companies to get the correct synergy between humans and technology. This was just one of the top-line insights revealed at the recent 2018/19 Ask Afrika Orange Index Awards where the overall top 10 winners of South Africa’s premier service excel-lence benchmark, as well as 29 industry category winners, were announced.

Top 10 Ask Afrika Orange Index winners

These are the companies which achieved the highest service score overall:

“These top 10 winners all display service excel-lence and are able to meet growing expectations from customers, who are faced with greater choice and display diminishing loyalty,” said Sarina de Beer, director: client experience at Ask Afrika.

“This year there was a strong dominance from the retail and automotive industries in the top 10 winners. It is interesting that the telecommuni-cations and financial services industries are no longer winning as they used to a few years ago. The top three industries in the 2018/19 Ask Afrika Orange Index in rank order were the automotive, clothing retail and food retail industries.”

The Ask Afrika Orange Index benchmark has a 18-year history and measures best practice in service – not only within, but also across different industries. This year, 167 companies were measured across 29 industries. More than 12 000 interviews were con-ducted with South African consumers, using the Target Group Index (TGI) and Ask Afrika random digit dialing sample – about 6 000 were telephonic and 6 000 were face-to-face interviews. This sample is randomly selected and no credit or sample lists are used. The results are independently audited by auditing firm, BDO and by statistical consultant and sampling specialist, Dr Ariane Neethling.

“Methodological rigour is important because it ensures the robustness of the data. The response rate for the survey was above the industry norm of 75%. If the response rate for the survey is low, the data is not representative and cannot be gener-alised back to the South African population. Our results are double-checked for accuracy and the entire survey takes about 12 months to conclude, which is really fast for research of this magnitude,” explained De Beer.

Industry category winners

The 29 industry category winners in the 2018/19 Ask Afrika Orange Index achieved the highest service score within their industry category. New winners are highlighted in green and the super winners (having won the industry category for three consecutive years) are highlighted in yellow.

Andrea Gevers, CEO and founder of Ask Afrika, gave the opening address at the awards ceremony, which was held at The Venue in Melrose Arch on October 4, 2018.

“We have the third largest business process outsourcing (BPO) or call centre industry in the world and it is 60% cheaper than the UK, but more expensive than India and Pakistan,” she said. “This is due to the cost of our telecommunications, which is too expensive to allow us to compete globally. If you put this together with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), South Africa will lag behind if we don’t acquire knowledge. AI is not putting people out of jobs, as was first predicted – even more people are needed to programme and operate it than the jobs it replaces, but these are educated people with knowledge.”

Gevers said that if you have the right person-ality, if you are friendly, conscientious and empa-thetic, and have some degree of education, you can get a job in a call centre. In the future, because of technological advancement, this will no longer be the case, she said. “The government protects workers, but it can’t protect jobs. In order for our service industry to remain competitive, we all need to make an effort and start investing in the indus-try and increasing our knowledge base.”

The top two service drivers of 2018/19 are:• The knowledge that employees have to

resolve your queries/requests;• The professionalism of employees in deal-

ing with you.“The service drivers this year are less complex

than in the last few years, which shows that most companies are not understanding what customers want and they are not getting the basics right,” said De Beer.

“Service levels have dropped by 1% year-on-year and emotional satisfaction has dropped by 10%. Even though we are better equipped to get the tac-tical dimensions right, such as net promoter score (NPS) and first-call resolution (FCR), we are not even doing that. The tactical dimensions are essen-tial, but don’t differentiate service ratings – we are failing at authenticity, fairness and values, which affect the emotional experience of a customer. Eight out of 11 core service dimensions are based on soft skills and we need to get all the dimensions right to have a truly customer-centric industry.”

COMPANY INDUSTRY CATEGORY

1. Woolworths Food Food Retail Stores

2. Burger King Fast Food Outlets

3. Woolworths Clothing Clothing Retail

4. BMW Automotive

5. Clicks Pharmacy Pharmacies

6. Audi Automotive

7. Mercedes-Benz Automotive

8. Beares Furniture Shops

9. Checkers Food Retail Stores

10. Foschini Clothing Retail

INDUSTRY CATEGORY COMPANY

Airlines British Airways

Automotive BMW

Building Retail Bathroom Bizarre

Car Rental Avis

Car Tracker Cartrack

Casino The Boardwalk Casino

Clothing Retail Woolworths Clothing

Electronics and White Goods DionWired

Entertainment Ster-Kinekor

Fast Food Outlets Burger King

Financial Institutions FNB

Food Retail Stores Woolworths Food

Funeral/Burial Services Avbob Funeral Services

Furniture Shops Beares

Home and Decor @home

Hotels Protea Hotels

Internet Service Provider MWEB/Tiscali/Global

Long-Term Insurance (LT) Companies Metropolitan LT

Mass Retail Makro

Medical Aid Companies* Discovery

Online Shopping Takealot

Petrol Stations Engen

Pharmacies Clicks Pharmacy

Private Hospitals Netcare

Security, Armed Response Companies Stallion

Short-Term Insurance (ST) Companies Outsurance ST

Sport Retail Total Sports

Telecommunications Cell C Mobile

Vehicle Consumables Tiger Wheel & Tyre

* Bestmed was placed third in the Medical Aid Companies category.

The 29 Industry Winners of the 2018 ASK AFRIKA ORANGE INDEX

Overall winner of the 2018 ASK AFRIKA ORANGE INDEX: Woolworths Food

21 FEATUREBUSINESS REPORT Friday, October 26 2018

Putting our patients at the centre of everything we do is what Netcare’s nursing professionals and healthcare partners are dedicated to delivering every day.

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private hospital category of the 2018/19 national Ask Afrika Orange Index awards. This is the third consecutive year that Netcare has won this prestigious award. Thank you for recognising that at Netcare we provide YOU with the best and safest care. You’re in safe hands

Netcare VCD 9051 | 10.2018

Care | Dignity | Participation | Truth | Passion

THE services industry forms an import-ant part of South Africa’s economy and it provides many jobs. Service excellence is a core element of brand reputation and is rooted in customer satisfaction, which can only be achieved if a company truly understands its customers and their ex-pectations.

On the whole, South African customers are not happy with the service they are receiving – and one of the core service drivers that emerged from the 2018/19 Ask Afrika Orange Index service performance benchmark survey was the need for em-ployees to have more knowledge in order to assist customers effectively.

According to Brand South Africa, South Africa’s economy has traditionally been rooted in the primary sectors of mining and agriculture. Since the 1990s, the focus has been shifting to the tertiary sector, which includes wholesale and re-tail trade, tourism and communications - and it is fast becoming a knowledge-based economy, with a greater focus on technol-ogy, e-commerce and financial and other services.

Among the key sectors that contribute to the gross domestic product (GDP) and keep the economic engine running are manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, financial services, transport, mining, agri-culture and tourism.

After being manufactured, products need to be sold to consumers, and this is where the services industry comes in. However, year on year, the finance and business services industry lost 39 000 jobs from the second quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2018, according to Sta-tistics South Africa.

There is an interesting correlation between the services industry and the manufacturing industry – the automotive industry was the best-performing industry in terms of its service rating in this year’s Ask Afrika Orange Index awards and the automotive industry is a top performer in manufacturing sector.

The automotive industry is one the largest in South Africa’s manufacturing sector, which accounted for 13% of South Africa’s GDP as at Q3 2017, according to Brand South Africa.

The food and clothing retail industries

were also top performers at the Ask Afrika Orange Index awards and textiles, clothing and footwear also form a significant part of the local manufacturing sector.

The retail and automotive industries dominated the top 10 winners of the recent Ask Afrika Orange Index awards.

The Ask Afrika Orange Index bench-mark has a 18-year history and measures best practice in service not only within, but also across different industries. This year, 167 companies were measured across 29 industries.

Companies not getting basics in service right

According to the Customer Service Benchmark Report 2018, a massive 92% of customers indicated they would stop purchasing from a company after three or fewer poor customer-service experien-

ces. Customers expect zero repeats, which means that first-call resolution is more important than ever before, but they also want personalised service and don’t want to be “case numbers”.

The Ask Afrika Orange Index survey showed that, apart from the winners, on the whole, companies are not getting it right:

• 62% of companies do not respond to customer-service emails;

• 90% of companies do not acknowledge or inform the customer that an email has been received;

• 97% of companies do not send fol-low-up emails to customers to see if they are satisfied with the response;

• Only 20% of companies are able to answer questions in full on the first reply;

• The average response time to handle a customer service request is 12 hours and 10 minutes.

Importance of knowledge in fourth industrial revolution

The Ask Afrika Orange Index revealed that when comparing human versus self-service touchpoints, the human inter-face performs better, because customers feel important and there is an emotional element. However, customers expect the ease, speed and convenience of self-service options.

Interactive voice response causes frus-tration if not personalised. As artificial intelligence (AI) advances, the service industry will transform, with machines being able to provide personalised service. However, this has a number of implica-tions.

In her Ask Afrika Orange Index awards opening address in Melrose Arch, Johan-nesburg, on October 4, 2018, Ask Africa CEO and founder Andrea Gevers quoted

a passage from 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, one of the books reportedly on former US president Barack Obama’s top 10 reading list.

She said the excerpt painted a picture of a future where, if society continued on its current course with AI, it would end up with “a superclass” based on ac-cess to knowledge, with those outside this untouchable class living in “ghettos” and being “paid not to have children and to die”.

While this is an extreme example, it emphasises the importance of knowledge.

“In order for our service industry to remain competitive, we all need to make an effort and start investing in the indus-try and increasing our knowledge base,” Gevers said. “We also need to remember our humanness and that what customers are really looking for is an emotionally satisfying experience in their service en-counters.”

Are South African customers satisfied?

The consumer landscape is becoming increasingly complex. With more chan-nels, consumers have more access to infor-mation, choice and convenience - and as a result, they are less loyal.

“Consumers know and expect more in terms of both service performance and relationship. Consumer expectations change on a 12 to 18-month cycle. The two things that are most important in the ser-vice landscape in 2018 are the knowledge that employees have to resolve queries or requests, and their level of profession-alism,” said Ask Afrika director: client experience, Sarina de Beer.

“The concern for the service industry is that the 2018 service drivers are less complex than in previous years – last year, the primary service driver was the ability of employees to make customers feel confident in their ability to be of assistance, and in 2016 it was the overall interest shown by employees to the cus-tomer as an individual,” she noted. “This is an indication that customers are not getting the kind of service they would like and so they are starting to ask for the basics again. Despite a steady improve-ment in service excellence between 2014 and 2017, satisfaction levels decreased in 2018 and are currently in line with 2013 ratings.

“There was a drop in all the service di-mensions from last year. The biggest drop this year was in emotional satisfaction levels, which decreased by 10% year-on-year and in every industry measured,” said De Beer.

“To perform well in the service context, a company needs to build its reputation and garner trust from customers in order to have a good service relationship. The biggest contributors to this were fairness, effort and responsiveness in interactions with the customer,” she added.

“In contrast, the biggest detractors to companies scoring well in service ratings were values that were misaligned with cus-tomers, not giving back to the community through corporate social responsibility, and a lack of effort, empathy and emo-tion,” De Beer said.

Knowledge and emotion central to service industry Andrea Rademeyer, CEO and founder of Ask Afrika, speaking at the Ask Afrika Orange Index awards.

Sarina de Beer, director: client experience at Ask Afrika presenting at the Ask Afrika Orange Index awards.