Value Of A Customer

So finally the dreaded July weather is beginning to show signs that it has finally arrived. The weather has been of late playing games with people by blowing cold at night and early morning while summer hot during the day from 10a.m. With the change in weather to cold it is naturally the time of the year when coffee houses rejoice and become meccas for those tying to keep warm. Knowing this is a coffee houses Christmas period, you would think they would be rolling out the red carpet and making sure they secure your wallet to their establishment instead of giving their competitors a chance to knock them off the totem pole. 

In today's competitive service oriented sector it is absolutely crucial to have a mobile working staff with a stellar gold standard level of service. One bad experience and you would lose customers very fast. Allow me to exemplify an example of what not to do. One day I walked into a Java outlet and politely asked a waitress if I could share a table with someone as it was very packed. She proceeded to ask the closest person who happened to be seated near the entrance and it was a done deal. Fast forward 45 minutes later and I had not been served or a waitress approaching to with a menu to ask what I would have. Never mind that the same waitress had just seated me and did not bother to ask me for my order. Mind you this is a coffee house restaurant so it falls under fast food service when it comes to orders. So there I sat tapping away at my laptop until I had to complain to corporate on twitter in order for me to get someone to serve me let alone prompt service. In my head I am seated there thinking, how many people go through this exact “level” of service at this particular location in a day, then calculate to a week, month and lastly a year. The cost of losing a customer let alone a loyal customer is priceless.

Nairobi Java has a lot of competition and in this market and I think being one of the market leaders has made it become complacent in terms of service standards and food delivery. If I were to use myself as an example of a loyal customer and the value of having me as a loyal and repeat customer, I could probably calculate my worth to the organization thus:

I have a minimum of 2 cups of coffee a day and being in my line of business I am always on the go. Thus at least one of these cups is normally a take away from a coffee establishment. Every Tuesday since April 2010 I have always gone for breakfast at Java Adams arcade/ Junction and now Valley arcade as it is near home. If you do a price analysis, you would get the following:

1 double house coffee per day 170 *5= 850*4= 3400*12= 40,800

Tuesday breakfast 880*4= 3520*12= 42240

Total yearly spending 40,800 + 42,240= 83,040

By law of averages baring being out of town , sickness, family holidays etc., lets us be conservative in nature and say I only visited 70% of the time, you would still get  58,128/- as my minimum value to your organization yearly. This does not factor in my wife’s participation and the people I may meet there who are a value unto themselves. Mind you my wife is a lawyer who spends most of her time at Java mama ngina and java upperhill as she meets with friends and clients. Now if I was to take her minimum value same as mine, you would get 116,256/- as a couple/ family. If I were to complain and say you lose an average of about 2 customers a month at the end of the year you would have 24 customers and at an average of 50,000 per customer you are looking at 1,200,000/- per year minimum just because of lack of customer service and we are not taking into account those who never return because of a bad experience with food or any number of issues. In today’s economy can we say this is acceptable figures for a company that has Dormans, The Mug, Savana, Art caffe and a number of other coffee shops as competitors?

Dear Java it is time to wake up and smell the coffee (pun intended) before you lose customers in droves.

Why do Kenyan companies hate their customers so much?

Customer service is defined as provision of services to customers before, during and after purchase thus, customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met or exceeded the customer expectation. That being the case, using the definition above as a guide to your everyday interaction with most companies in Kenya, do you feel they meet or exceed your expectation or do they fall way below average? I recently had a drink with a couple of friends and we were discussing provision of services in different establishments they had visited that week and the horror stories were astounding.

Horror story one: Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), Gigiri Branch. You walk in and are determined on adding your spouse as a signatory to your account. After standing in line for what seems like eternity with no sign of free food, the “helpful” lady serving you produces a bunch of papers for you to sign and requests you to sign forms for opening a new account. You inform her you don’t want a new account you just want to add your spouse as a signatory to your account, which she promptly replies NO, you have to open a new account. When you ask why and how come the lengthy process, she gives a flimsy reason and tells you that is the way. She also requests you for paper work, proof of income and a copy of your utility bill plus your ID is photocopied 4 times and you end up spending about 2-3hours in the banking hall. When you politely point out this is all information she has as you have been with this bank and branch for years, she acts like she has not heard your pleas and you have to sign or forget it. Where is the common courtesy or the customer relationship management (CRM) meant to be helping you make life easier when you walk into their establishment? Lastly you request for a change of branch to one closer to where you stay and the request is denied. Since when did a bank or bank employee have such powers as to determine where you can bank and transact your business. Dear KCB, you do know there are other banking establishments out there that have competitive products and services and, they are your competitors?

Horror story two: You are a customer with the famous bank ya mwanchi known as Equity bank. The atms and systems go down two weeks ago so you walk into the bank to do some transactions and withdraw money to pay your rent. After lining up for about 3 hours the counter and bank closes. Please note you are in the banking hall but can’t be served because systems are down and none of the staff in the said bank branch thought it prudent to inform the customers that the systems were down, please come back tomorrow as we can’t access any account information thus we are not in a position to help you. Never mind they are still accepting your money for deposits. So there you are having taken an afternoon off work, wasted your time and energy and have to go home and give your landlord the story of “my dog ate my homework”. Common courtesy and a proactive customer service department would have saved you all this time and hassle and still managed to retain you as a customer but as Equity claims it has millions of mwanchis as customers, so losing a few will not matter or affect the bottom line.

Horror story three: Zuku, my infamous favorite service provider who is more famous for outages and interacting with customers only when it suits them. So a few months ago a friend decides to migrate to Zuku and their triple play offer from one of the other internet service providers who were over charging and not supplying the said services they were being paid for. Problem is that the triple play has been a rumor most of the time. Either the internet is down or the TV does not work. Kindly note the phone has never worked and my friend is convinced it’s a house ornament that they give. So she calls customer service which is famous for phone operators mumbling their names so that you don’t hear and thus cannot complain about the shoddy work and tech support they give.  She has been complaining about the phone and being told to change ports. Now if you are non tech compliant, will you know what port they are talking about or will you think you are being told to move from Mombasa port to the soon to be built Lamu port? Secondly she decides she wants to change her Wi-Fi password and name, the tech person on the other side of the line informs her to disconnect the whole equipment and carry it to their office where they will sort it out for her. What nonsense is that? I have never heard of such a laughable idea especially when I know that all you have to do is give them your account number and they do it from their end as you wait on-line. Dear Zuku, faiba is here with their amazing adverts and speeds, kindly note it’s not a monopoly you have.

Horror story four: Kenya Airways, you have gone and created a disaster and public relations nightmare just because it happened on a weekend and we all know how people in that organization like their weekend tipple. How can a plane on its way to Nairobi from Amsterdam make an emergency landing in Greece and you decide to leave the passengers to fend for themselves? This is not an episode of Lost or the movie Terminal with Tom Hanks. Get up off your lazy asses and do your job without being prompted. You have Elderly people, unaccompanied children and sick people on that flight who not only deserve better but have paid for your services to be brought from destination A to destination B. Remember the little people (the children) are future customers you have wronged and ignored, when they grow up do you think they will use your services, the “Pride of Africa”?

To all these Kenyan companies that think Kenyans are there to provide them with profits as they render no services, I’ll leave you with this gem of wisdom “all it takes for a business to fail is for one customer to complain about your services and infect 10 people around them with negative attitude towards your business”. You do the maths and let me know if your business plan still works with negative inflow of customers.

Happy New Government

It’s been a while since I sat down to blog something and have truly missed the interactions following each blog. The reasons vary from laziness to creative block. Hopefully the new energized and trying to be more efficient I 2.0 will be typing them out as fast as you can read them. In addition, I will be taking a bit of a detour from the political themed and satirical blogs to those bordering on more day to day happenings.

I am a Kenyans Kenyan at heart. I believe in our country, its potential, people and endless beautiful scenery. The true if it’s free enjoy and don’t knock it person, one of accept and move on movement people. But, the mediocrity that is Kenya keeps making me want to scream out and ask at what time do we say enough is enough and draw a line in the sand? Being a man, we are not adept at screaming so you turn to your fellow bar patron and nod as you have a big swig of your whiskey. We all know how the elections went and the soap opera that came after that. It was as nail biting as an episode of 24 or Lost. We all sat glued to our Google set boxes (TVs) and watched each day with bated breath. When the curtains finally came down, it was jubilation for some and sour disappointment for others, depression for others and happiness for others. Then came the media and every other person who had found their voice, jamming down the accept ad move on mantra every 5 minutes as if Kenyans were about to degenerate into the debacle that was 2007PEV. In one of our proudest moments, Kenyans showed each other and the world that they are bigger than the selfishness of the political class that sings ballads and serenade us with words that would convince a Lion not to eat an antelope as they are bosom friends.

What transpired after accept and move on have been episodes of lunacy. First off, even before the MPs had taken office and started working they decided they wanted a major pay hike and gave the Kenyan electorate the middle finger. We all watched as they threatened and managed to hold the government ransom and the president just sat there with hollow words of please don’t. In which company or job do you rock up and demand a pay hike/ increase even before doing one day’s work? Next came the first scandal of the new government with the deputy president getting a private jet to jet set and visit some countries in West Africa that most Kenyans can’t pronounce or point out on a map. The total cost of the trip kama kawaida was pillowed and fattened by some fellow who pocketed some loose millions as pocket change for the whole fiasco. The usual denials followed and threats to the daily paper that broke the story that they will be sued if they don’t retract the story and apologize forthright but nothing came out of that when more information was put in the public domain for them to decide on its viability. Next a cabinet was named that made Kenyans think that a major change was coming and we were finally learning that professionalism in the way we run the country was finally here. Alas we were hoodwinked with some questionable characters and a vetting process that is now known as a giant rubber stamp commission.

As expected and envisioned, soon after the MPs oops Mpigs awarded themselves some extra pocket money, the nurses and teachers unions sat down and sharpened their knives for the inevitable kichinjiyo. When one sees a fattened animal on a farm, we always start thinking of the next meal. Thus a strike or two have been called and a couple of go slows put in motion. We have had and continue to have major security issues engulfing Kenya and teachers on extended holiday due to the strike they have called courtesy of the new militant face of KNUT known as General Sossion. He rekindles memories of the late Adongo who was the face and head of KNUT in years passed. Their gripe is that if over 50 billion Kenya shillings can be passed for project laptop then surely teachers who have suffered for years can also be sorted mara pap. The laptop for standard one children was a major selling point and campaign pledge for the current government no matter how impracticable and unattainable it is. I have nieces and nephews who are in standard one and nursery who loose like 5 pencils a week and their whole bag just to see how stressed a parent can get, what makes you think a standard one child will take care of a laptop? Secondly if you don’t pay the teachers who are meant to teach them how to use them or let alone own one so they know how to utilize one when they see one, how do you hope they will readily accept and implement the project when they are starving, walking to school and have no medical for their family? It is common knowledge that if you have major distractions in your life such as basic day to day survival, you will not concentrate and give the task in front of you your full 100%. In my opinion, the laptop project should have been geared towards the university and college students who need it more than the standard one kid plus the teachers so they can better impart knowledge. That said I can’t wait to see how my God daughter Emma, my niece Abby and my nephew Owuor (namesake) handle theirs next year when they are distributed.

Lastly we have the new face of get rich scheme handlers known as governors. They were elected and I don’t think they have a clue as to what their role is. Week one saw them set up camp and launch a supremacy battle between them and the county commissioners who they say are in office illegally. Next they waited for the government to take them for a retreat at the Great Rift Valley lodge only for them to hijack the event after the president’s address and say they want personalized number plates and flags on their cars. My God those are things a 4 year old should be grappling with and wanting on his toy cars. Next they decide they need big mansions in their areas, offices in Nairobi and create budgets that have reduced them to laughing stocks. Take the example of Kakamega governor and his cabinet that passed a budget for over 50 million in entertainment, 8 million for local travel and over 15million for pornography awareness. The excesses vary over the whole country from Kisumu governor wanting 72million for new prados for his cabinet, Busia governor 70million for a new mansion and Meru governor over 300million for new cars. Mr. GOVERNOR this is not your personal get rich kitty or personal account to live out your fantasy life. In the time it will take you to identify, buy the land and start building you will be out of office and enjoying your local brew under the shade of the tree in the corner of your small shamba wondering where everything went wrong. This is not to say they are all a sad bunch of Muppets. Some like Machakos governor Alfred (Alfie)Mutua of the cobra squad fame and former government spokesman , Nairobi governor Evans Kidero and Cyprian Awiti Homabay governor are doing a fantastic job and know why they are in office. We wish all the characters in this show known as “The Governors” all the best and hope sense prevails and they make devolution work. Remember Mr. Governor there is now a recall clause and it comes up in about 2-3 years and Wanjiku and Otieno are watching keenly.