Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You'd be amazed how many companies don't listen to their customers. Ross Perot
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Bill Gates
The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing. John Russell, President, Harley Davidson
I got a call from a Swift Networks employee in the morning of Wednesday the 20th of March 2013. She, like no fewer than 5 of her colleagues who had called me before her asked why there has been no activity on my Swift Networks account in recent months. However, unlike with her colleagues whose queries I responded to immediately, with this lady, I started by apologising that I was going to ask a question of my own before responding to her question and then asked her whether they had a file on each of their customers. When she responded in the affirmative, I asked her how come she was about the sixth person calling me to ask me the same question. If they did have a file on every customer, it makes sense that the file should be updated after any activity on a customer's file and so the reason why I stopped using their internet services should have been written in my file by her colleagues who had called me earlier. She responded by saying the last thing on my file was sometime about two years ago when I called their customer care number to complain about an issue. The focus of the present write-up is not why I stopped using Swift Networks. Its focus is the possible reason why so many consumers are not getting good customer services from their service providers due to inadequate or no record keeping. Like I told the lady who called me on Wednesday, going by the number of people who had called me before her to ask why I stopped using my account with them, she should have seen in my file, the reason why I stopped using Swift Networks and so, if anybody from the company decided to call me, it should not have been to ask why I stopped using their services, but to find out what they could do to get me back as their customer. Swift Networks is of course not the only company guilty of this. I once signed as a referee to someone who was about to open a current account with Guaranty Trust Bank PLC and about four different people called me from the bank to ask whether or not I knew the person, my email address and so on. By the time the last person called, I was tired of answering the same questions when I would have been saved the stress if one of the persons who had called earlier had noted my responses in the appropriate file. Of course, I asked the guy if they were not noting things down in the file and why so many people had to call to ask me the same questions. In the absence of good record keeping, it will indeed be difficult for a business to determine what the customers really want and or need and what their major complaints are and how to improve the services rendered or the products sold. Is it any wonder then that a lot of businesses make "improvements" that are not to the liking of the customers? Another area, closely related to record keeping, which also affects good customer service is in the lack of avenues through which customers can make their feelings known to service providers. For instance, you will think that with the advent of the social media especially in these days when companies whose management know what they are doing are beginning to employ Social Media officers and managers, a lot of service providers will have functional email addresses and be on social media platforms through which they can freely interact with their customers. This is however not the case. At the time I decided I had had it with Swift Networks and while shopping for another internet service provider, I decided to make enquiries about Spectranet. I went to their website and looked at their products and plans. I then sent an email to seek clarifications on some plans. This was no less than 6 months ago. I am still waiting for a response to the email I sent. My mail was surely delivered because I got no failure delivery notification. Worse still, at that time, in my impatience to find out more about their services and plans I called the customer care number I saw on their website and a young lady attended to me. She however knew less about the type of modems offered by the company and internet plans than I did! At that point, I decided that however fast the internet services offered by Spectranet was, it was not for me. I absolutely refuse (where I can help it), to deal with a company with bad customer service. A company that won’t respond to emails and that will put a person that knows next to nothing about the services offered by the company as its customer care person. Has anyone noticed that the bulk of the businesses with presence on the social media platforms are companies into retail which have seized these platforms to display their goods and even offer free deliveries in certain cases? I have longed for a long time to send some ideas (for free mind you!) to some of the manufacturers in Nigeria but I am yet to come across functional email addresses of most of these manufacturing companies. Virtually all the imported cosmetics and cereals I have seen have email addresses and toll-free numbers that customers can send messages to or call in case of any issues. In Nigeria, in 2013, a lot of manufacturers are yet to take advantage of these avenues to interact directly with their customers. As it is certain that these companies will receive favourable feedbacks, so it is also certain that they will receive not-so-favourable feedbacks. What these businesses should learn however is that neither of these categories of feedbacks is bad. The good ones will let the companies know what they are doing right while the bad ones might tell them what they need to do improve their sales/services/products. As it is with countries, so it is with businesses, a company that does not keep record of its customers cannot really learn from the customers and may of course not be able to provide the kind of service that will keep the customers coming back again and again. Virtually every Sunday, I attend a program in 1004, Victoria Island, and after a few weeks of buying newspapers from the same Vendor, I no longer had need to tell the vendor which of the newspapers I want, once the Vendor sees me approaching, he brings out the newspapers I always buy. Because of this, I never buy newspaper from any other Vendor on Sundays unless I have no plan to go to 1004 Estate. Sometimes, customers do not require much more than little things like this to keep returning to a particular place for their services or products. Business people will do well to take the 3 quotes above very serious if they want to keep their customers and even gain new ones. Let's continue the conversation on our Facebook page and make the much needed difference together.
No comments:
Post a Comment