Pic courtesy of Flickr
If you are a mass customer you had better get used to queues and congestion. Whether it is in retail, banking, telephony or travel: you will often be treated no better than cattle. You will stand around in long lines for hours, or hang on incessantly for an operator; you will sit on hard, tiny, uncomfortable seats; you will have your calls dropped; you will share inadequate bandwidth; you will miss flights because of overbooking; and you will meet a faceless corporate monolith if you try to complain. Because the giant company facing you is most probably a dominant producer in a monopolistic market, the message is clear: if you don’t like what we do, take a hike.- Sunwords.com
When I read articles such as one quoted above, the question that comes to mind; does the customer ask for too much, that he should be ignored so?
A perfect example of poor customer service in Kenya today would be our Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and for the purposes of this post, I’ll case study Safaricom Kenya. That doesn’t mean the rest are any better, just that being the market leader makes it an easy target for me.
If you have needed customer care services from Safaricom, I’m sure you’re familiar with the busy telephone lines, when they eventually go through, a customer care representative who responds with ‘ I’ll forward your problem to our technical, they’ll get back to you…’ and you can be sure no one will get back to you. Their customer care centres are no better than our banking halls, the only difference being the bank customers get some money at the end of the queue.
Bankelelewrote about an ordeal he went through trying to get an erroneous M Pesa transfer refunded.
Random questions:
How many people know how to activate their phones for internet access offhead?
What’s the number for M Pesa customer service?
You’ll realise such are what crowds the customer care centres of most MNOs today. What would they do to reduce queues, and at the same time serve their customers better?
Off the top of my head, I come up with these:
sms blasts
Currently, MNOs use SMS to advertise their new offerings (which can be quite annoying at times), but they could use these blasts as a customer service tool. For example, sending a blast to all prepaid data lines on how to purchase the various internet bundles, check balance, etc. Information such as M Pesa customer care number, and refund processing could also be transmitted this way.
The difference between this and what they use now like to publicise the bundles is the customer is able to store the information and can access it more readily, than from a piece of paper that was dished out in a traffic jam, and promptly forgotten in the car, or in my case, ‘tidied’ up by my cleaning lady 
dealerships
Most MNOs have thousands of dealerships that are affiliated to them. With basic training, the staff at these dealerships would serve as alternative customer care centres spread throughout the country. Remember most problems are really basic, and as such don’t need technical assistance.
crm systems
A week ago, I travelled to Tanzania, and had the opportunity of using the Vodacom/Safaricom roaming service (which I fondly refered to as a marriage that wasn’t working too well ). Coming back home, I would have loved to give feedback on how the service was, with hope that someone would do something about it.
Unfortunately, we don’t have systems where customers get to speak to their service providers. Would it take too much to have customer relationship management system, where customers voluntarily log in their feedback to the MNOs.
All this is based on the assumption that we as customers are as important as the mobile network operators say.
What other tools would be used by large companies to better serve their customers?
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a good post Kellie.
In this day and age, the Internet is second to none as a very efficient and cost-effective information delivery tool.
It really peeves me to realize that these telcos (please note they all offer Internet Access Services) do not have resourceful/functional web sites.
Instead of wasting valuable time calling customer care, we should be getting all valuable information on their web sites.
Another related method is forums on the telcos web sites, where customers/subscribers actually assist one another in real time. The Linux community is a very good example of this.
Good point Pete. I find it funny that ISPs have almost static websites, the home of internet! Customers assisting each other would be excellent too.
Nice post!
In this day and age, the Internet is second to none as a very efficient and cost-effective information delivery tool.
It really peeves me to realize that these telcos (please note they all offer Internet Access Services) do not have resourceful/functional web sites.
Instead of wasting valuable time calling customer care, we should be getting all valuable information on their web sites.
Another related method is forums on the telcos web sites, where customers/subscribers actually assist one another in real time. The Linux community is a very good example of this.
Great post. I like the ideas you raise:
Off the bat I can think of one idea for these companies – getting a dedicated employee to work as their Internet liaison person . S/he would search the net for posts like these ones and bring them to the attention of the relevant departments. Lots of good ( and free) advice is just floating around on the Internet.
Also shouldn’t there be a way that customers could text in their complaints?. Make the system such that for common problems you press a) and get a standard response – tested to ensure it makes sense to most people – and for the more complicated questions you get someone responding to your text within a certain time frame. Make customer care such a big priority that you are willing to stake your reputation on it!
The dealerships as basic customer care providers system would work only ifthe companies would come up with a system to make this mutually beneficial ( otherwise it would only be a chore for the dealers leading to even poorer customer service).
By the way, if you really want a case study of customer care service at its worst , you can’t go wrong with KPLC. It treats customers like they are morons who need to be dictated to for their own good. I guess its the result of being a monopoly, but someone should shame them into changing!
About the dealerships, it could just be incorporated into the contract as is branding, and really some problems are so basic, like how to get an M Pesa refund for example. Some dealers are clueless.
Text to email routing would totally work in the case of text related feedback.
I agree with you companies take customer service for granted!
Another way is to have live chat on their website with customer service agents. KRA has established a call centre right now that is very helpful.
That’s good for KRA, Lord knows it’s hell trying to get any sort of service from there. Hope the call centre staff are well trained and won’t just answer with the usual ‘we’ll forward your concerns…’
In my experience, customers will always get a raw deal unless a viable choice exists. As I’m more familiar with it, I’ll use a British example to illustrate my point as I believe that the problems customers face here are similar.
For many years British Telecom (universally known as BT) held one of the worlds biggest monopolies in the telecoms industry. Until legislation was enacted to break down this monopoly, the customer services philosophy was pretty much “if you don’t like it, crown it”…but of course, they wouldn’t suggest that this was the case.
The crux of the problem was that there was no one else to go to, even if you wanted to. The situation has somewhat eased with other service providers like Virgin and Sky coming into the mix. But even then, BT still control majority, if not all the infrastructure (cabling, fibre ops, etc) – and despite having access to other call providers, the basic line in most cases where there are no cable services are provided by BT.
They’ve automated most services now that you can preselect on the phone e.g. bill payment, service testing, etc, but they also use agents in outsourcing centres in India. I can’t even begin to tell you the frustration of calling someone in Bangalor and them insisting they can fix a problem at your local exchange. The truth is that BT is still very powerful and they will continue to get away with crap service, whereas Sky and Virgin for example, will be more customer oriented because they know their customers have a choice.
Service for mobile telecoms are different because there are at least 5 significan players and if one pisses you off, you just put the phone down and get another provider and you get to keep your number. Life moves on.
I don’t think Safaricom will get any incentive whatsoever to change until a viable alternative to their service is available to customers. Safcom customers are a captive audience and they don’t really have anywhere to go.
this reads like our Telkom and landline woes, the only difference being at least there’s someone in India talking to you. For Telkom, no one will talk to you.
You’re right Darius. Semi monopolies = crap service. The most unfortunate thing is as with most businesses, a time will come when we have options, and we’ll all jump ship. I for one use my Zain more these days.
Well, I think part of the problem is that a great many companies view ‘customer care’ as a sort of necessary evil; it is seen as a cost centre – something that u can reduce to drive costs down and profits up. Crazy, eh?
Customer care is the cheapest form of marketing that I know of.
The customer is to be exploited. As long as he’s paying today, no one is bothered whether he shows up tomorrow or not.
I acquired a myriad of sim cards in the recent past. Have never managed to talk to an actual human at Zain customer care. I’ve gotten through on Yu and Orange. Which will probably change if their subscriber numbers grow.
Customer care isn’t an easy problem for large enterprises. But like you point out, there are some “small” things that can go a long way in helping.
There’s a trick to getting through to Safaricom. I discovered it one day when I got tired of dialing 100 (which almost never works)
Dial 100 and any number of zeros you feel inclined to then add a random number at the end
i.e. 100000000004 or 100000000055
You end up getting through quicker. I don’t know why it works and I almost always talk to someone. Hope it helps. Even though ideally it should not be like this and information especially on the web should be accessible. Safcom has numerous customer care execs. Why can’t they be trained to handle online inquiries?
Free advise for businesses with service centers that don’t offer any service. Shut them down, will have something “extra” to add to your bottom line [I hope]!
It does not make any sense to host a function that does not work. Think of the human body. What happens if you don’t amputate a gangrenous limb (or toe)? You kill the whole being! Blood poisoning from the “dead” body part rapidly beleaguers the rest of the body. Short of a miracle, the certain result is death.