There is this gentleman who sells kabalagala – the small pan fired delicacies often made using ripe bananas and flour, by the roadside. That would not be anything to write home about except that this young man is often neatly turned out in a tie and often in a suit.
His kabalagala is polythene
rapped in packs of five, which cost a convenient sh1000. He is respectful,
always has change and he is joy to buy from, especially when you are stuck in
traffic.
Unfortunately I havent
talked to him at any length about his business but I notice every time I pass
by he is doing brisk business from his box which I estimate contains more than
500 kabalagala when full.
Last year’s lockdown
must have put the brakes on his progress but I see he is back at his slot
serving with a smile.
We have said before in this column that for most of our businessmen its not about the economy failing them, but because they just have bad customer service...
Contrast the young man
above with the lady who serves out of a restaurant I frequent. I have happened
upon her sleeping at her station and often have to be prompted for service when
she is awake. On occasion she doesn’t have change and when you leave your
change with her , the impression is that you might as well say good bye to it.
She is in business because she has a captive market, but she could do so much
better if she improved her body language around her clients.
Or the other day I go
to get my second Covid jab and the health center is a mess with no order,
people milling around you could not tell who had come for the first or second
jab and therefore who should be given priority. I jumped the queue --- there
was no line to speak of, on account of
my graying pate. But it was no thanks to the young nurse who was standing on
the verandah a bowl of fruit in her hand, chomping away at here fene. I had
mistaken her for a fellow vaccinate. Wen I asked what the procedure is she said
I should just seat and somebody would
come around to attend to me.
Yeah right. I ignored
her and headed for a more elderly doctor who seemed to be actively trying to
get us vaccinated. Now if she had been more helpful I may have found it in my
stone cold heart to fork out a tip on my way out. A shilling saved is a
shilling made.
"It is easier and
cheaper to grow the business off your existing customer base than to go out
looking for others. Poor customer service means this can not happen and your
business is more invested in roping in new hapless clients who would rather not
do business with you if they had known how you behave...
I am sure there is a
study somewhere that has n ailed down how much business lose due to poor
customer service but I am guessing it must be a
huge number. I am willing to bet people would more than double their
revenues if they brushed up on the way they treat their clients.
And I am probably understating it.
Imagine you have a clean place of business,
so on first impressions you are ahead of the game. Despite constant entreaties
since childhood not to judge a book by the cover we all do. Then your front
line workers if they are in clean uniform, ready with a smile and seeming
dedicated to meeting your every need you are making significant strides.
This is probably a good argument for
treating your staff better. You treat the well they treat your clients well and
they keep coming back.
Taking it a bit further what if this same
front line workers are schooled in every aspect of the business, so for
instance they know why six inch nails should be used for the job you want not
the four inch ones you had ordered, they move from just pushing things down
your throat to being consultants. Have you ever been to a restaurant and somehow
haven’t decided what to eat but the waitresses can recommend something for you
and tell you why? Pure bliss.
And then the actually delivery of the
service has to be live up to the foreplay. If there is a delay come back and
inform us of progress. There is nothing that makes me want to pull out my hair
in frustration than a waiter who after a lot of clapping and whistling – I have
found that “Gwe!” works best, than they turn up at your table and tell you what
you have ordered is not available, 30 minutes later.
In brand building there are four basic
components that need to be addressed; awareness, if no one knows your brand its
not a brand and then associations, when people think of your brand do their
think of dependability and quality or shoddiness and crap. Then the experience
people enjoy or suffer interacting with your brand. If you can tick off
positive attributes on those first three then the fourth, loyalty will follow.
What good customer service does for you is
improve the association attributed to
your brand and the customer experience. Funny thing is if this a good, by word
of mouth awareness increases and loyalty follows.
Last week an AfriArena study showed that
Uganda is doing badly in attracting start up capital. According to the report in 2020 Uganda only
managed to attract $11.3m (about sh40b) compared to neighbours Kenya who did
$305m. Even smaller economy Rwanda bit us to the post accounting for $11.6m in
startup capital to the continent.
UI am sure there are many high sounding
reasons for this state of affairs, but i am willing to bet that because of our
poor customer service we are unable to scale up or show the ability to scale up
our businesses to the point that they are attractive for outside investment.
That is a saddening thought.
