CUSTOMER (DIS)SERVICE

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there

— Will Rogers

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop

– Chinese Proverb. I believe, because since virtually everybody is a consumer of both products and services, customer service should be a phrase that will hardly require to be defined before its meaning can be understood. I nevertheless will humour those who might want to know one of its formal definitions by borrowing a definition of the term that I saw on Wikipedia. Wikipedia, quoting the definition of TURBAN, Efraim (2002) Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective, and defined it as “a series of activities designed to enhance the value of customer satisfaction - that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer’s expectation.” I will amend the last aspect of the above definition to read “the feeling that a product or service or both the product and the service of selling it has met the customer’s expectation. There is a reason why I tinkered with the definition quoted on Wikipedia; even if it is just a product that you are selling, the very act of negotiation before the actual sale and the mannerisms displayed in the sale also qualify, in my view as customer service. The description of customer service as a system designed to maximise customer satisfaction is thus in my view, quite apt. Every business owner or service provider knows that he/she must have customers to survive and thrive. Every business owner should thus be aware of the importance of making and indeed keeping customers happy and ensure that whenever the customer requires any product or service that he sells or provides, he or his product or service is the first that comes to mind. If this is so, why then do we have, particularly here in Nigeria, such really poor customer service most of the time? I know it is often said that the role of the government in our individual and collective lives are often exaggerated, in this case however, it is my belief that the government has a lot to answer for in the first reason why this happens and the second fault of course lie with our failure as consumers of products and services to realize the enormity of our power and to use that power to make our business owners fall in line by treating us right. The government’s fault is their failure to protect the consumers from exploitation by those they give licences to provide certain services and sell certain products. Government agencies also rather than regulate the way they should happily look the other way once money changes hands. Our fault as consumers as hinted earlier, is our failure to realize that we have the power to make our service providers behave right, it lies in our abdication of our crowns as kings and queens deserving of royal treatments. Of course, this is not to say that we should misuse our power and bad mouth businesses not deserving of such, no. It simply lies in us using the social media which most of us can now access through our phones, to name and as they say, shame. It is in our power to report our experience either with surprisingly (or even customarily good customer service) or with really bad or customarily bad customer service. Most of us complain for instance about the really bad service we have been getting in recent times from our mobile service providers. But really, what has anyone of us done about it? The only thing I know most of us do is to grumble and leave it at that. I don’t know how many people have experienced this, but also in recent times, added to the issue of bad service from our mobile networks is the really horrendous customer care that we now receive. Before my recent experience, the main issue I had with the networks’ customer care was the unreasonably long period they keep me on hold while waiting to speak with a customer care assistant or personnel. I’m guessing the long period of waiting can be attributed to the high number of people who also have complaints to lodge or issues to resolve. When I finally get to speak with the customer care assistant, I usually didn’t have any issue with their manner. They may or may not be able to resolve my issue, but I never had encountered anyone that I could label as rude or saucy. Well, I never did, until sometime towards the end of last year (2012) and when it happened, I was so shocked that it took me several seconds before I could utter a word. And even when I eventually did, the only I managed to say was “well, thanks for being so rude, what great service” or some other words to that effect. I am sure we all encounter varying degrees of bad customer service daily, from the government officials who will see people to attend to but will rather choose to gist with colleagues and or friends with not a care for the fact that those people might also have other pressing engagements to attend to, to the one who will refuse to attend to your file until you are forced to part with some reasonably large amount of money, to the internet service provider who tells regularly that data that should ideally last for a month has been exhausted in three weeks even when you hardly do more than check mails and use Facebook! Like I have observed in responses to the readers’ feedback page of the ever-innovative Punch newspaper, no reasonable business owner likes his/her faults to be publicly exposed. That is the power that I believe can make a difference in the kind of customer service we receive from those whose wealth we contribute to through our patronage of their products and services. This is what has informed my creating this blog. It is for everybody to be able to come to this page and freely report any bad or particularly good customer service that he/she has received. Please feel very free to post comments, so long as what is reported is fact and not fiction or an exaggeration of the true situation. I believe, we can make the difference, but that can only happen if we act, and we name and we shame or we name and commend those who are already doing well to encourage them to do even better. Kindly like the facebook page created just for the purpose www.facebook.com/CustomerServiceReports and please don't forget to visit the page to report your good or bad customer service experience Kindly also spare a moment to take the survey on the blog. Thank you!