recent launch of “Camp Resolution” by the Ministry of Housing and Water is a laudable one as it is an attempt to address problems and irritants in the water sector through face to face action between officials of the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) and those who are affected.

In a way it could be described as a parallel move to the “One Stop” programme launched to help resolve problems affecting people in the housing sector.

The advantage with the approach proffered by these programmes is that to a large extent the “red tape” and procrastination are reduced and their problems are addressed on the spot.

Of course, one of the plagues of our society is the problem of “red tape” and bureaucracy and many services both in the private and public sectors are not customer or people-driven as they ought to be. The end result is poor standards of service and frustrated customers, and in this regard it was heartening to hear the Minister of Housing and Water, Irfaan Ali stressing this point at the launch of “Camp Resolution” in Essequibo last weekend.

Mr. Ali, reminded consumers that the basic principle behind “Camp Resolution” is changing the image of GWI and creating the fundamental basis on which it was set up.

“It is an organisation that is people driven, people centered and people oriented,” Minister Ali explained, noting that water is a service type of operation and affects persons at the “most critical level of society”.

So Camp Resolution is re-branding the whole image of GWI, ensuring we create that linkage between the customer and the organisation; ensuring that issues of transparency, concerns and complaints are resolved.” he stated.

According to experts on the subject a truly customer-driven service platform allows a company to place a dollar value on customer satisfaction, thus enabling management to tie financial results to customer satisfaction and employee performance. The keys to building a strong customer-driven service platform include collecting and managing the right customer and employee satisfaction data, including call monitoring data and customer and employee survey results, daily internal metrics and then using a variety of advanced analytics and predictive modeling techniques to bring everything together to track and predict the success of business and marketing efforts.

However, one important aspect of ensuring that companies provide a customer driven service is by recruiting the right personnel and providing adequate training so that they clearly understand their role and duties and they deliver the quality of service required of them.

Unfortunately, in this country many employees simply do not understand or just do not care that an essential part of their job in dealing with customers is that they must deal with customers in a courteous and efficient manner. They seem to no longer be guided by the old age principle that the customer is always right and they are not doing a favour to the customer but rather it is their duty and are paid to carry it out.

Too often we see customers being handled in a rude and hostile manner as if he/she is begging a favour.

We as a nation must understand that development is not only about socio-economic development, increased exports and higher salaries etc. but very importantly as well the quality of services that is provided to the populace. Economic development must go hand in hand with the provision of a high quality of customer service.

And so it is most encouraging that the minister has given the commitment that measures under “Camp Resolution” is aimed at changing the image of the GWI which has not have an impressive track record for being a customer-driven entity.