The Voice (Francistown)
Zeph Kajevu
8 April 2008
Francistown — He is credited for maintaining a culture of providing workable solutions for his corporation, and he a winner. His name is Kgosi Sebigi, a Customer Care & Services Foreman of Water Utilities Corporation at Carbo Centre in River Walk Mall.
On average Sebigi handles 1000 customer queries a month, out of a total of 40 000 connected customers. And he has leant that the best approach is to give individual attention and provide immediate solutions, irrespective of status.
"Because each customer provides revenue by paying water bills on time, we have the obligation to move with speed when attending to queries. In my chore business as foreman (for the past five years), I serve clientele who query our billing system either because they have received extraordinarily high or unusually low water bills. They could be experiencing technical problems preventing them from having uninterrupted water supply," he explained, adding that reasons could be a result an inaccurate estimation of monthly consumption which occurs when Water Utilities meter readers "are denied access to secured premises that are becoming a common feature in Gaborone as a deterrent against criminals or unauthorized entry"
Also, Sebigi said extraordinarily high water bills could be a result of undetected pipe leakages on the customers' side, after the billing metre. In most instances, the affected consumers are not conversant with the technicalities linked to undetected pipe leakages and how they can inflate the monthly water bills. When consumers approach his section, he immediately dispatches officers to carry out a thorough on-the-spot investigation and submit an evaluation report copied to the incumbents. In the event of bills running into thousands of Pula consumers and the Water Utilities financial control department compromise on a repayment period spread over the months to allow customers to pay up without causing them undue budgetary pressures.
Sebigi, who has worked for Water Utilities for over 27 years, revealed that speedy delivery help the entire organization change their mindset, policies and procedures that might slow down investigations. Research shows that customers value speed because it unleashes the tools needed to dramatically shrink the time it takes get things done.
He said that the best practice involves treating all clients equally because all and sundry, ranging from top executive to the most lowly paid end user value the importance of water as an essential good inextricably linked to life in the same manner. "I call upon my colleagues involved in customer care services to benchmark their performance based on focused, impartial and undivided attention to clients as a best practice. Everyone on your staff must participate. It is not in our nature to think and act with speed. Even with established deadlines, we tend to wait until the last moment to complete our tasks. Our customers are our most valuable asset and we need to provide them with the best service to highlight our appreciation."
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