Across Ghana, this week has seen many companies, especially banks, adorned in bright colours, cheerful uniforms, and banners proclaiming, “Happy Customer Service Week!” From Accra to various parts of the country, staff greet customers with smiles, offer refreshments, and pose for pictures celebrating “excellent service.” But for many Ghanaians, the question remains: where does that excellence go when the celebration ends?
Each year, the first week of October is marked globally as Customer Service Week, a time meant to appreciate customers and promote quality service delivery. In Ghana, banks and corporate institutions often participate with enthusiasm, decorating branches, organizing games, and wearing themed outfits. Yet beneath the surface of this colourful week lies a troubling reality. Many customers say the warmth lasts only as long as the decorations stay up.
For much of the year, stories of poor customer service continue to dominate public conversations, particularly in the banking sector. Customers complain of long queues, inattentive tellers, poor communication, and slow resolution of complaints. In some branches, it’s common to see staff distracted by their phones or chatting among themselves while clients wait for attention.
Recent data backs this concern. The Bank of Ghana’s 2023 complaints report recorded nearly 700 formal complaints lodged against various financial institutions, mostly for unsatisfactory responses to customer issues. Out of these, only about two-thirds were resolved.
Another study by CUTS International earlier this year revealed that over half of Ghanaian banking customers do not know how to formally lodge a complaint when treated unfairly. This is a sign that institutions are failing to communicate their own feedback channels effectively.
The issue, many experts argue, goes beyond individual behaviour to a systemic culture. Customer service training, where it exists, is often irregular and poorly enforced. Incentives for frontline staff rarely prioritize courtesy, efficiency, or empathy. Instead, workers are pushed to meet sales targets or process volumes, leaving genuine service as an afterthought.
This service gap has not gone unnoticed. The President himself, during a past address, acknowledged that poor customer service has become a national embarrassment, echoing sentiments expressed by visitors from neighbouring countries like Nigeria and Kenya who describe Ghanaian service as “frustrating” and “inconsistent.”
Despite such criticism, pockets of excellence exist. The Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana’s (CIMG) Customer Satisfaction Index (GH-CSI) highlights a few banks that consistently maintain high service standards through training, accountability, and open complaint resolution. But for the most part, the experience remains uneven.
Consumer rights advocates insist that the Bank of Ghana must take stronger action, not just encourage improvement, but enforce it. Calls have intensified for clear, mandatory service benchmarks that financial institutions must meet, including publishing their complaint-resolution rates.
For now, though, the story is familiar. Every October, the smiles return, the decorations go up, and branches fill with slogans about putting customers first. But when the music fades and the uniforms return to normal, many Ghanaians say they are still met with the same indifferent service that has become routine.
Customer service in Ghana, it seems, still has a long way to go, and a single week of celebration won’t fix what the rest of the year neglects.
