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BUSINESS REPORT Friday, November 9 2012
ADVERTISING FEATURE
SPECIAL PROJECTS
Ask Afrika Orange Index
SALES REPRESENTATIVE: JOHN DAVIS
WRITER: REHANN COETZEE
Published in The Star, Pretoria News, The Mercury & Cape Times
Service is every
one’s business
at the JD Group
A
ated around making a difference through service.”
To support this sentiment,
the Art of Service over the past
year consisted of:
■ Facilitating ongoing conversations across the business
through an internal initiative
called Heart Talk. This is a
mechanism whereby the company provides structured conversation topics aimed at not
only providing information,
but also encouraging feedback
and two-way dialogue, noting
in particular that the best ideas
live on the shop floor and must
be harnessed.
■ Launching a new training
programme focused on both
functional and behavioral
skills requirements, emphasising product knowledge, sales
skills and service standards –
this learning programme was
rolled out to 7 899 retail sales
and financial services consultants and will become a foundational programme for all new
entrants to these roles.
■ Aligning business process
and policy: Through Heart
Talk, the company obtained input from employees on the policies and procedures they believe are inhibiting great
service. This feedback was and
continues to be analysed and
the necessary changes are underway.
■ Measuring and tracking
progress towards delivering
world-class service on an annual basis through:
● Customer-focused leadership.
● Employee engagement.
● Internal customer service.
● External customer service.
“We understand and recognise that all the initiatives internally must translate into the
customer experience and that
the ultimate proof of our efforts resides with our customers’ opinion of the service
they receive, and for our
brands to be recognised as winners in 2012 in both the furniture retail and the electronics
and white good categories is a
good result,” Barletta says.
Added to this is the fact that
all of the retail brands within
the JD Group were placed for a
second year in a row: Barnetts,
Price ’n Pride, Bradlows,
Joshua Doore, Morkels and
Russells, in furniture retail and
HiFi Corp, Incredible Connection and Electric Express in the
electronics and white goods
category.
“We are truly grateful to our
customers who took the time to
provide us with this feedback,
and we promise to keep responding to you and your needs
in all of our brands. Thank you
to all of our customers for your
on-going support of our
brands. These awards have inspired all of us to work even
harder.”
Allan Herman, chief executive of HiFi Corp, says that the
award validates the fundamental structural and systemic
These are some of the Service Champions at JD Group’s business who help to drive the
company’s service initiative across all the brands.
shifts made to re-position this
brand, a journey that started
three years ago towards becoming a completely customer centric business. “The HiFi team
have worked very hard on our
customer value proposition
and the marketing thereof. The
in-store execution of the Hi-Fi
Corp promises and delivery of
the new ‘HiFi Corp switched
on’ identity resulted in our customers recognising the im-
“You are my everything”
provement made by this
award,” he says.
Eppo Joubert, the chief
executive of Barnetts commented that the continuous
commitment and effort toward
service excellence by all Barnetts employees during the last
two years is now rewarded by
achieving first place in the furniture retail category in the Orange Index.
He continued by saying that
all our staff are positioned to
maintain the high standard of
service in Barnetts and to live
up to our brand promise of
“service and value you can
trust”.
Joubert commented that
during the year Barnetts have
continued to expand their community involvement programme and as a result have
seen a definite increase in customer support for the brand.
ABSA was today announced as ment, getting things right the
the only bank in the top 20 of first time, with rapid turnthe 2012 Ask Africa Orange In- around.
dex and the winner of the
Ed Carrell, chief operating
Banking Category for Cus- Officer of Absa Retail and
tomer Service.
Business Banking, said: “We
The annual Ask Africa Or- are delighted to have won the
ange Index Survey results have award in the banking industry
been released and Absa says category. We are very grateful
happy customers voted with to have such loyal and supporttheir hearts and rewarded the ive customers and we know
bank with the top spot in Ser- our frontline colleagues in
vice Excellence in the Banking Absa work tirelessly to deliver
Industry Category.
for them each and every day.
Maria Ramos, Absa Group However, we are not complaChief Executive, said: “This cent and know we have some
ranking is a great tribute to the distance to go to achieve our
loyalty of our customers and in ambition of being the ‘go-to
the unstinting efforts of Absa bank’ in Africa.”
staff. Our focus has always
Carrell says Absa aims to be
been on putting the needs of the ‘go-to bank’ for customers
our customers at the centre of and that equates to being the
everything we do. This award instinctive choice for a cusshows that we are making tomer, earned through consisprogress towards becoming the tently delivering relevant prodbank of choice for our cus- ucts and services, at a good
tomers.”
price, in the most convenient
Bobby Malabie, chief execu- way and at the right time and
tive of Absa Retail and Busi- place, where and when a cusness Banking, said: “We owe tomer needs them.
this award to all our loyal cus“If we continue to be liketomers and hard-working em- able in doing this, then we
ployees. This great achieve- build a trust and a bond that is
ment is indeed proof of our
difficult to break,
commitment to customers. I
which is the corhave no doubt that we will
nerstone of
continue to deliver great
healthy
service to our customers
brand eqand that this particular
uity,” says
award inspires us all to
Carrell.
do even more to secure
our place in our customers’ hearts as the
‘go-to bank’. It is all part
of our drive to make lives
much easier through improved customer satisfaction.”
Absa is in the midst of
transforming a number of
critical customer experiences
and has used a customer
experience design principle
to move from a paper-based
product to a customer one, Maria Ramos, Absa Group Chief
in a paperless environ- Executive
“It’s a kind of magic...”
– Queen
– The Temptations
Our customers mean everything to us, that is why our promise to
We extend our heartfelt appreciation to you for voting us as
you is “Service and Value you can Trust”. We thank you for trusting
the top performer in Customer Satisfaction for the Electonics
us to fulfill our customer promise and voting us as winners in
& White Goods category, for the second year in a row. Our
Customer Satisfaction – Furniture Retail.
passionate focus on service excellence promises you a magical
customer experience at every HiFi Corp store.
1st
1st
FURNITURE RETAIL
ELECTRONICS & WHITE GOODS RETAIL
www.jhafrika.co.za 24513
CCORDING
to
Pamela Barletta,
group executive of
human resources,
it is expected of
every staff member of the JD
Group to be fixated on making
the customers’ experience unforgettable and on making a difference to the customers’
world.
“We are humbled by the continued efforts of the leadership
and people of our company to
work as one in a collaborative
fashion to maintain the levels
of satisfaction we see in these
results,” Barletta continues.
Last year, the JD Group
reached its three-year milestone in its art-of-service journey:
■ 2011: Electronics & White
Goods Industry: 1st – Incredible
Connection, 2nd – Hi-Fi Corporation and 3rd place – Electric
Express.
■ 2011: Furniture Retail Industry: 1st – Price ’n Pride, 2nd
– Barnetts, 3rd – Joshua Doore,
4th – Morkels, 5th – Bradlows
and 6th – Russells.
“The service industry remains competitive and our
challenge moving forward is to
improve on our current service
levels and to compete with players outside of our own industry,” she says.
“To maintain and/or improve on service delivery to
our clients, 2012 has been a year
in which we focused on maintaining the energy we have cre-
Customers give Absa
thumbs up for service