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.