‘Johnny come lately’ on customer service

It is June 2007 and I am only a month old in Kigali after a five year hiatus. I have just got myself a job and the excitement is palpable. This is the break I always longed for. It’s my chance to contribute towards building the nation. Instead of bricks and mortar, I am armed with a laptop.It’s a knowledge based economy we are pursuing after all!I decided to go shopping for a power adaptor for the 3 pin plug on my laptop cable to get the ball rolling. I remember it like it was yesterday. I found myself standing in a ‘Quincaillerie’ on the building with a KCB branch at Kisementi. It looked like a family business with husband at the back reading the day’s paper and the wife at the front desk chatting away to a friend or relative.I strolled in casually and looked around and sure enough they had the power adaptors that I was after.The only problem was that no one in the shop was paying any attention to me. I decided to make an impression as a serious customer so I pulled a RWF 5000 note from my pocket and dramatically waved it around in the air.To my utter surprise, not a soul seemed impressed! What started as a bit of fun quickly deteriorated into frustration and was now on the verge of turning into anger! After what felt like an eternity, the lady looked in my general direction without making eye contact and asked, “Tubafashe ikyi?” I was seething at this point! The look on the lady’s face suggested I was more of an interruption than an esteemed customer; too much for ‘the customer is king’ mambo jumbo!Normally, I would have walked away and taken my custom elsewhere. Unfortunately, I had looked around Kisementi and in a radius of 500 metres could not find another hardware shop. I asked for the price of the adaptor, handed over my money grudgingly and left the shop baffled by the whole experience.Two years later in December 2009 at the annual government retreat in Rubavu, the catch phrase was ‘Customer Care’ with the president commenting that “The Issue of customer service is a serious one for the Government and Private sector and unless we overcome it, we are wasting a lot of time and therefore, not achieve the kind of development we want to achieve “.I was glad that the issue had come to light although on a personal level I had mellowed.I had learnt to suffer in silence as many Rwandans do. In fact, there is no better indicator of who is new in town than how we respond to poor customer service.The newbie will shout and be exasperated when their screaming does not yield any better result that trying to milk a stone. The ‘basangwas’ know how to get a result. They cajole and smile while cursing under muted breaths.It is now universally recognised that unlike our East African neighbours, Rwanda has a major problem when it comes to customer service. Indeed this is why several initiatives have been taken by the national taskforce under the auspices of Rwanda Development Board and the Private Sector Federation to combat the issue.Campaigns like ‘Na yombi’ are the rage but it remains to be seen if they will yield the desired effect. What seems to be at the heart of the matter is the marked difference in the way Rwandans interact on a social level and in business. On the social front, we rival anyone when it comes to hospitality and friendliness.In business however we seem to judge our customers by how they dress and whether they can afford our products or services. We treat customer service as a chore rather than a pleasurable act.If you do not genuinely enjoy what you do, it’s very difficult to provide a pleasant service to your customers. Be that as it may, professionalism demands that once you accept to do a job you go on to do it to the best of your abilities. This is the foundation upon which good customer service is built. It’s about having the right attitude to do the job at hand.According to the customer Care Institute an online based resource, a great customer service program can be built by any organisation along these four pillars; philosophy, systems, decisions and vision.Every business needs to define an internal customer service philosophy, that is, a common understanding of what constitutes good customer service. This has to be the same for all employees and must be documented for easy reference and training of new staff.Systems like ‘point of sale’ or even simple forms must be in place to facilitate staff in providing service to customers. An example of a really simple system would be notepads with short codes for menu items for waiters in restaurants. These help speed up service and reduce chances of mixing up orders.Staff interacting directly with customers must be empowered to take on-spot decisions to make a customer’s experience more enjoyable in case something goes wrong. In supermarkets for example, a standard warranty of seven days on non perishable items could make it easier for clients to return items and not rely on the mood of the shop owner to receive a refund or replacement.Most importantly, the owners and managers of businesses must have a vision to ensure continuity of good customer service practises. You can train staff every year but if the attitude at the top does not encourage these practises, they will be forgotten as soon as they are taught.The aim should be to turn practices into habits and it’s these habits that will transform into a culture of good customer service.

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‘Johnny come lately’ on customer service