I had some issues with a security software I downloaded on my laptop and immediately reported the issues I had through the software company's support mail. To my surprise and delight, I got a response to my mail within an hour of sending the mail and expressing my concerns. The mail suggested steps to take to correct the issues and get the software working well again. In the mail, I was encouraged to never hesitate to get across to the support team if the suggestions did not help my situation.
I tried the steps suggested but still had my issues unresolved and, following their encouragement, promptly sent another mail to report the failure of the suggested steps. Within another few hours, I had received another mail which informed me that another programme installed on my laptop was the cause of the issues I was having and suggesting steps to take to correct the situation. I followed the instructions in the mail and was elated to see the software working again. I immediately reported the success of the new measures to the software company.
It is instructive to note that the software was a free security software I downloaded from my bank's internet banking page. I paid absolutely nothing for this software and yet when I had issues with it, I was given speedy, top-rate customer care attention and further encouraged to always report further issues as the support team was always ready to assist in the resolution of any issue I might have with their software. I have emphasised the free nature of this software to show that this company has nothing to lose if I decided to withdraw my "patronage" because they do not thereby lose any income. It got me thinking again about companies here in Nigeria most of which have either rude or completely clueless customer care representatives. As I have written before in a previous post, I have found that a lot of our companies either have non-functional email addresses or do not bother to check their mails and maybe even worse, they do not deem the bulk of the mails sent to them to complain about products/services worthy of responses.
I have said it before and I will continue to say it until something gives, we, the customers have enormous powers that we refuse or neglect to make use of to get better services, and until we exercise our powers and say enough is enough, even the few companies that have relatively good customer care service will be tempted to join the others. After all, if the customers are not complaining, they must be content with the quality (or lack thereof) of the services they receive. It is after all, again said: If you can't beat them, join them!"
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