Firstly I have
worked in Customer Service and the saying that ‘customer is King’ was clearly
upheld where I worked. It was clear that you were not allowed to have your
mobile phone during office hours, couldn’t go on the web not unless it is
company portal and had to pick any phone calls by the third ring. We were also
supposed to operate within a given service level, for instance, if the customer
requests for X, X should be delivered in X1 format (not unless customer
specified otherwise) and in X2 days. If for whatever reason, you were not able
to deliver the X in X2 days then you need to provide a good explanation why, in
most cases, this wasn’t a problem as most customers are rational and human and
can understand a thing such as system failure. The reasoning behind the above
service level agreement is that the customer is expected to pay their bills on
time and for them to do so they need to have full disclosure.
Back to the
Kenyan Case, Ken chic has a meal deal which is basically an addition of the
cost of chips and cost of Chicken without a discount whatsoever. I can see why
they would do this as the stuff would profit if there were a discount applied,
but this is only because Ken chic doesn’t want to invest in a good point of
sale software. If you ask for Ketchup which is clearly on the picture used to
advertise the meal deal they tell you they don’t offer Ketchup as they have
clearly stated. But if you still want a free one you can help yourself from the
one on the tab that looks to have been made a month ago or pay 5 shillings to
get what looks like a professional packaged product – still tastes the same.
The same goes
for Naivas and Tuskys, go to the counter and they don’t bother to look up and
try act interested in what you may want to buy. The assumption is that they are
doing you a favour. In Co-operative and Equity bank, the tellers all have their
mobiles phones with them and at times you have to wait for a good 2 minutes for
them to notice that you are there to be served. At the end of the teller tables
is the manager/supervisor also very busy texting or doing something she clearly
shouldn’t be doing.
Probably one of
the most interesting encounters I have had to date is the post office. I had a
registered mail coming in, and even though the online tracking clearly showed
they had my letter the lady said ‘if you don’t have the blue slip, please don’t
waste my time’. She told me she wasn’t paid to go through many letters (5 on
the table) to check which one had my name and tracking number on it. Once an
Mzungu comes with a similar request, she bends over just as UK does for EU
without a question.
It seems like
Kenyans are complacent of the bad customer service and most of them will not
complain on this. After all you are paying for a service; you should be served
with some level of importance. Kenyans are ‘nice’ people they don’t want to
claim about the poor customer service, but lo I have complained and often will
make someone feel uncomfortable about it to make my point heard. I don’t think
I alone can make a difference but I do know if someone had a business and they
wanted loyal customer, try good quality customer service. It is known to work!
Simply having someone bag your stuff in the supermarket will not do it. Having
someone treat you like a number whilst checking out will make someone think
twice about going back to that shop; but where else do you go to as they are
all the same?
