News

The University of Botswana has scooped first prize in this year’s Education category of the Botswana Service Excellence Awards. The prize was announced at a Chartered Institute of Customer Management (CICM) awards ceremony dinner held in Gaborone on November 26, 2021.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, CICM Regional Manager, Ms Charlene Chibonda, said the prize was the outcome of a customer satisfaction service survey during which customers nominated organisations of their choice based on their experiences.

Ms Chibonda said in guaranteeing accuracy and fairness, multi-level and mixed methods were used for data collection to ensure that brands were qualified at every stage and customer experiences captured from a broader representative sample.

She observed that key customer service attributes that were measured in this year’s survey were product quality, service speed, after-sale service, customer friendliness, query management, proximity to customers and frequency of customer engagement.

Ms Chibonda highlighted that “on the analysis of findings, an independent, diverse and complementary team of adjudicators from various sectors and professions was put together to validate the robustness, accuracy, fairness and credibility of this year’s customer satisfaction survey”.

She acknowledged that this year marked a difficult period for organisations during which many business processes had to be redefined due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The new normal came with new products amidst an environment that was characterized by several revisions of economic growth forecasts,” she added.

However, she stated that amidst all the threats of the pandemic, life still went on as economic activity continued with people and corporates embracing the new normal.

Meanwhile, other categories included Health Service, Insurance, Banking, Courier and Delivery, Fast foods, and Education.  The University of Botswana emerged the winner with Botswana International University of Science Technology and Botho University, coming second and third, respectively.

Acting UB Vice Chancellor, Mrs Motsei Rapelana and her team proudly received the award on behalf of the students and staff. Mrs Rapelana congratulated UB staff for a well-deserved award given their sterling performance and ensuring that customer satisfaction remained a key value in their day-to-day work.