Maltanet celebrates Customer Service Week

Customer service week, celebrated between October 4 and 8 by Maltacom subsidiary Maltanet, was a big success. The Internet service provider (ISP) started celebrating Customer Service Week three years ago and has never looked back.

Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Times at Maltanet in Balzan, Gordon Dimech, manager Commercial Services Division, said Maltanet had always been very attentive of customer care.

"When we started off as an ISP nine years ago, just like other ISPs, the service we offered was not without problems. Our biggest nightmare was: 'Will customers manage to connect after 6 p.m.?' This proved to be the easiest problem to solve since it only required purchasing more equipment. We later realised, however, that customer care would be our biggest issue," Mr Dimech explained.

Dialling up became easier as Maltanet started to buy new equipment, so the situation from that end was to a certain extent controlled. But then, real customer issues started flowing in. "Acknowledging there were problems and trying to solve them was not easy," Mr Dimech added.

"However, once our customers received the support they needed, it almost became like a virus; it spread. Today, we are reaping the benefits," he smiled.

Over the years, Maltanet has experienced a substantial growth and is today one of the largest ISPs (there are a total of 16) in Malta, also providing customer orientation.

The idea of Customer Service Week is that, even internationally, for one week every year people stop and celebrate - free gifts, free coffee, special rates, etc. and "during that one week we make it a point to stop and focus on the people giving the support," Mr Dimech stressed.

"During Customer Service Week, we focus primarily both on our staff and customers, we thank our customer service agents who deal directly with our customers and we try and use the concept of Customer Service Week to come up with ideas to involve the staff more in customer care, from the CEO to the newest recruit," he added.

This year, Maltanet's employees carried out a survey over the telephone among Maltanet customers. Customer services team executive leader David Gatt said the staff team, which is made up of almost 20 customer service agents, asked customers various questions about technical support, sales, online support, renewals, e-mail and the Internet service.

This proved to be quite informative because today Maltanet is hitting a wide audience of users. Five years ago Internet was sold mainly to computer geeks only who knew practically everything about computers.

"Some of our customers today do not even have the basic knowledge of how to dial up to the Internet, how to right or double click with their mouse, how to send e-mail or how to send an attachment. Others are unable to renew their account on line or do not know what password to use. But they are all very keen to learn," Mr Dimech pointed out.

Around 80-90 Maltanet customers were contacted every day during Customer Service Week. These included clients who used the various services offered by Maltanet, including dial up and ADSL.

The team of customer service agents, which includes almost 20 agents, handles about 900 telephone calls and 150 e-mails a day.