Thirty Mid East and Africa countries participate in LG service strategy meet

The seminar comes off the back of a directive from LGE's Middle East and Africa President, K. H. Kim, to ensure customer satisfaction remains top-of-mind with all LGE's regional distributors and dealers leading the company to 'Top National Brand' status by 2005. Mr. Kim's directive is also in line with the philosophy of new LGE CEO and Vice Chairman, Mr S. S. Kim who has emphasised the role of human resources in making a company great.

"Regionally, LGE partners achieved high grades in customer service indices over the last 18-months," said Kim. "What we must do now is ensure we maintain the momentum.

"After-sales service is an integral part of LGE's business philosophy to ensure complete customer satisfaction and service seminars enable us to share tactics, efficiency protocols and TDR (tear down and redesign) projects to further enhance LGE's lead in the market."

LGE's directive to its Middle East and Africa partner network is to gain regional 'Top National Brand' status through a combination of swift-to-market product distribution and superior customer satisfaction indices.

"We are under no illusion that in order to reach this goal customer service indices must remain high," said Y. R. Roh, President, LG Electronics Middle East (LGEME) - LGE's regional service arm.

"Only a brand that is fully trusted can be a truly national brand and the role of LGE's customer care departments is hence critical to our vision.

"LGE can boast of having best customer service policies, procedures and services in the Middle East and Africa. This year our aim is to be number one in customer service satisfaction indices in 15 countries across the region."

In recent years, LGEME has introduced a number of unique customer care initiatives throughout the region and is now extending its activities with aggressive plans including wide-reaching 'Service Marketing' schemes.

LGEME's recent 'One-Call-Does-It-All' campaign highlighted the free phone number for LG's customer information centres (CIC) which proved a big hit with customers regionwide.

"The 'One-Call-Does-It-All' service initiative was developed to keep LG ahead of its rivals in customer service indices," said Roh.

"Our research shows customers want easy access to product information, to details on where they can purchase, what promotions are taking place, recommended prices and product maintenance. All this is now available via one call to the CIC.

"Once a customer calls a CIC, they also receive a return call which gets them to rate the service and their satisfaction. This 'Happy Call' monitoring has resulted in tremendous customer response across the region with LG CIC recording high levels of customer service satisfaction."

These centres have been opened in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa. The launch of the CIC network means LG now provides service access for 16 hours a day, 365 days a year in the 12 countries.

"In 2004, LG will push ahead with plans to open more CICs across the region and the 'One-Call-Does-It-All' campaign will again be the vehicle to ensure the customer knows what to expect," said Kim.