An Examination Of Customer Service Training Programs Offered By Micro/Small Retailers And Medium /Large Retailers In Ondangwa

Abstract

This project involved an examination and a comparison of customer service training programs offered by both micro/small and large/medium retailers in Ondangwa, Namibia. The goal of the study was to determine and classify the types of customer service trainings offered to employees of differently sized firms in Ondangwa, in addition, to determining the effectiveness of the trainings offered.

The study only looked at the retailers and their employees in Ondangwa, using, both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative approach administered questionnaires to employees of various firms across the town - to establish their views and experience of customer service trainings, while the qualitative approach used semi-structured interviews with the managers of the firms.

This was a cross-sectional study targeting only employees that were on duty, therefore, a convenience sampling method was used. The study used two research instruments to collect data. The first instrument used was a questionnaire administered to employees while the second research instrument was interview guides used to interview managers of participating firms. The instruments were tested to ensure that they were understandable and the questions were simple to understand.

The study consisted of a total number of six medium size retailers and 39 micro and small size retailers. No large retailer, as per the definition of Namibia’s SME policy criteria on number of employees, was interviewed. The study also received responses on its questionnaires from 135 employees of those firms. SPSS and thematic analysis were used to analyse quantitative and qualitative and data accordingly.

Before administering the questionnaires, permission was sought from store owners and managers to allow employees to participate in the study and only employees of those shops that had agreed were given questionnaires to complete.

The study found that majority of retailers in Ondangwa offer customer service training to their employees. The training contents mainly include how to approach customers, dealing with customer complaints, and customer care. Another aim of the study was to compare customer service training by Micro/Small enterprises with that by Medium/Large enterprises. The results show that Micro firms offered more training

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programs, followed by the Small firms and lastly, the Medium enterprises. This finding is largely influenced by the fact that, most Ondangwa retailers are small branches of larger corporations. By definition therefore, the local shops are micro and or small. Nonetheless, both employees and managers/owners indicated that there is room to improve both the content and the delivery approach of customer service programs offered among Ondangwa retailers.