I will preach customer care till the kingdom come. Reason being, Kenyan businesses have a way of treating customers as a necessary evil, to be exploited and thrown into the trash can at the earliest opportunity.
The other day, I ordered a couple of books from Amazon.com to be delivered to my postal address. Was working with the assumption that since Kenyans aren’t known to be avid readers, my books would be delivered safely, and also, had ordered a classic before and got it safely, way before the estimated delivery time. This time, I wasn’t so lucky, one week into the ETA, I didn’t have my books, so I thought to write a note on the customer feedback page. I didn’t expect much, I mean really, Amazon is a big corporation, a random email from Kenya? Losing me as a customer wasn’t going to cost them much in profits, they had bigger fish to fry.
2 hours later, I get a response (gasp)! Apologies, a promise that if a month elapses before I get my books, they’ll ship another set, and an immediate refund of the shipping costs. I wanted to reply and tell them it’s not necessary to refund my shipping costs. Really, you’re being far too kind!
After all, I’m used to this:
I walk into Nakumatt Mega (Sorry, but this is my blog, I name and shame them), to their ‘fresh’ stuff bakery, with the aim of tasting their blackforest (I’m a cake connoisseur of sorts). I buy a slice of cake, head on home, only to realise that said cake is not only past it’s prime, it’s actually stringy. As a rule, I won’t eat blackforest that is past one day old. Stringy cake, is a rather tall order…
I head back to the supermarket, to politely inform them that their cake is not only not ‘fresh’ as they promise, it’s likely to cause their customers grief. I’m informed that I either pick another stale cake, or I lose my money. One not to risk, I wish them blessings, and walk, swearing never to buy anything from the ‘fresh’ bakery at Nakumatt Mega, vow to write a post about it, and tell anyone who will care to listen, that they sell stale cake. I had the option of going to management, but I figured, if management cared, they wouldn’t sell stale cake to start with.
They say one happy customer will earn you 3 new ones, one unhappy customer loses you 7 potential ones.
In Kenya, this is rather common.
I could give other examples;
of the Steers Chicorello hot sub that had pineapple last week (zero quality control), and I thought it would be hopeless to complain, because there was no chance of them replacing my hot sub
I could talk about those beauty shops in town where they follow you around as you window shop, like you’re a thief
I could talk about Cellar (the restaurant opposite Methodist Guest House), where we had to wait for almost 2 hours for a meal, only for them to skip an order and we had to share the food because it was getting late
Why are we robbing our customers?
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
This post hits home! I am very tired of the “we don’t care, we don’t have to” attitude in Kenya. If we sat down and came up with a list of all the nasty experiences perfectly good customers go through the list may include every company in this country.
How many stories of good service can we come up with, though? Perharps we need to highlight these.
I was recently at Coulson Harney’ s offices. I’ve never been treated better by lawyers
My only experience of Nakumatt is in Kisii, where I have always found the staff to be very courteous and helpful. I don’t know if this is because it is a small branch in a small town, or because I am mzungu in an area where we are few, or a bit of both.
but I actually like shopping there when I am in town.
@Kelvin. Well, other than the Java chain of coffee houses, and my barber, I can’t think of any other place I’ve received value for money service. Really
@Babamzungu I can’t fault the staff on this, my biggest problem is delivery. If you say your cakes are freshly baked, let them be freshly baked. Deliver on your promise. I bet it takes over 4 days for cake to become stringy.
Yeah, customer service in Kenya on many occasions is delightful to watch in action.
Oddly enough, I can’t really say I experienced a huge culture shock in terms of customer service while I was down there. Maybe it was that I was oblivious to a lot, but I will go against the grain and say by and large I got great service everywhere in Kenya.
I did occasionally get ripped off, but then again when I look at my situation and what I gained and what they gained, overall, sad to say, even when folks ripped me off it kinda worked out heavily in my favor………
You have a new avataar, nice, makes you look very professional-authory ( yes its a word)
Random comment, no?
Well… these lousy service should really not be tolerated. Thank you for telling me about the stale cakes. So Nakumatt, here you have, me, who isn’t going to recommend anyone to eat those funny cakes. And if I can, I shall mention the stale cakes on my blog too. Ripple effect. Now I have a choice to go to T Mall or some place else.
@Mwangi, well, you’re lucky. My problem with Kenyan businesses is while they may not rip you off outrightly, the customer is still treated like a necessary evil. They’re not king. And the whole ‘goods once sold cannot be returned’ is really exploited. Basically, a Kenyan business would rather make one sale to a disgruntled customer, than risk making a loss by accepting a refund, and in turn gaining several other sales!
Thanks! On the professional – authory compliment. I know a new word now
@Our Kid if you want fantastic blackforest, see me on the side. If you want good blackforest, I recommend Green Corner, it’s opposite the ATMs at Kencom House. Their customer service sucks, ambiance sucks, buy a slice to take away. Always fresh and moist. But I found the best BF baker on earth.
I have to put in my complaints about bad customer service from Wananchi’s Zuku broadband. These people can really mess with your head. Imagine I usually pay my bill two or even three days before my due date. Lo and behold, these people almost always miss my payment and DISCONNECT me on my due day. Now the funniest thing is, when I call them (rather very angry and pissed, almost screaming my head off) demanding my reconnection these customer reps respond without blinking that ive not paid my bill. Even my efforts to give them invoice number and bank slip is met by PAY YOUR BILL FIRST kinda replies.
Rookie, that is the kind of customer service am subjected to on a monthly basis. Love their fast BROADBAND connection though better than ‘thiefing’ and ‘thuging’ Safaricom BROADBAND
You will not believe what happens to me. Over and over. I work for an NGO in Kibera with a group of Americans and we often go out over the weekends. Out of say 10 places we have been, the bill is miscalculated in 8 of them. From bars, to clubs to restaurants. But we have learnt our lesson. Every time we ask for the bill, we ask for the pricelist, we then do our math. If they do not coincide we ask for the manager, or the police or walk out. We walked out from a club once with a bill worth 6thou, without paying. This one place impressed me the most. A brazilian restaurant in Viking House in Westlands. Its called Fogo Gaucho. This one I can vouch for. Excellent food and service. You got to try it!
The truth is a lot of companies do not give a lot of thought to customer service. Also, what do poorly paid employees care for a business? It is a whole lot of the kenyan rot of a society that robs us of value for money/excellent cervice
Service is mostly non-existent. I’ve screamed my head off more times than I care to count. It also means that the places I am treated well I always go back to like my hairdressers Queens.. wonderful ladies
I agree 100%. We need informed, active and aware customers so as to enlighten the otherwise businesses that are sleeping on the job.
I think only shaming Kenyan bad service will help, customers take too much ill treatment as if they do not have any consumer rights.
I hope they’re able to actually feel the shame, because I’ll keep doing it.
Knock. I welcome myself here.
Now this is a great post. Reminds of the broadband safaricom modem. pure thievery I load 500 shilling aka 100mb, put my modem on, do not surf for an hour, then i notice i have up/downloaded 68mb’s? How? Even the customer service guys cant just understand.
Karibu sana. Safcon are real robbers! Sometimes 300MB lasts forever, most of the time it just bleeds and you wonder. Anyway, real unlimited broadband is now here with us
We process more than 10 Nakumatt vouchers for for clients From the diaspora Daily or so with Nakumatt lifestlye and we have never had a problem with them.They send our orders to clients in their respective branches countrywide without fuss or delay.
Maybe its just one person who did not act right but my and our , experience with Nakumatt is great
babawatoto online
Well, it’s good you’re ok with them, but would urge you to shop at Nakumatt Mega. Nakumatt was so so good, these days, they have queues even at 10pm, leave trollies all over the place. But anyway, selling stale cakes was just the winner for me.
This is the reason Got Issuez exists. To find some way to amicably solve the crisis of consumer vs. provider and get good service and good feedback in between.
Great to see you all expressing yourselves this way, it’s our responsibility to make sure you get heard. Given the death of the suggestion box in this country.
Did I mention we give away plenty of free goodies? Vouchers to Java, The Day Spa, Blankets and Wines, Plays, Phone Credit, etc…
Thanks for hollering Mark. Registering as a member of Got Issuez, cos I really got issues with customer care in this country.
My friend told me that they charged her UGX 5,000 (~Ksh 185) to talk to MTN (the Safaricom equavalent in UG) Customer Care on her phone. Man, wasn’t she pissed!
One thing that will attract customers is having a good customer care. Valueing each customer can be a great help in your business to grow. Hospitability i should say would be a great factor in attracting customers.