Celebrating the Kenyan Customer @50

Kenya’s Customer Service Week was recently celebrated at the end of November 2013 with an impressive figure of over 50 companies from both the private and public sector participating to demonstrate their commitment to appreciating and recognizing their internal and external customers. The week’s theme was “Celebrating the Kenyan customer at 50” in line with the country’s Jubilee Celebrations and organizations conducted various activities that left their customers feeling valued and appreciated including job swaps, provision of gift hampers, customer service quizzes, tips and training on customer service, red carpet welcome for customers, provision of refreshments and awards and recognition of customer service champions.

This then brought to the fore the question – where is the Kenyan customer placed 50 years down the line? Has anything changed? Has it been a good 50 years for the Kenyan customer? Does customer service in the country celebrate milestones in this period? Is the Kenyan customer celebrating and being celebrated?  I suppose the answers would be as varied as individuals’ appreciation of service and their levels of expectation, but in general some gains have been made and there are lots more gains out there to be made to raise the standards of service excellence.

Communication with customers has improved with many service providers setting up call centres, e-help desks and joining the social media fray in a bid to be more responsive and communicate and engage with their customers. Customers are now better able to demand service and communicate their feedback on great or poor service as rendered. The social media platform particularly has shifted the attention corporates give to customer service to placement of more concerted efforts by the sheer number of users reached by service posts. The over quoted postulation by Jeff Bezos about one complaint on the internet reaching 6 million people isn’t overrated in its virulence. It is so and organizations are stepping up to claim their social media space. Another positive trigger effect is that monopolies that had hitherto assumed that customers will always be yoked to them are now sitting up and listening because the brand damage on the social media streets is enough to get any CEO off their high backed power chair to demand customer service intervention to reverse the trend.

The fad of putting up customer service charters seems to have taken the country by storm as well. And in as much as the writing on the wall may not translate into actualization, the fact that the organizations have thought through the brand promise and service delivery standards they would like to commit to their customers and documented these and proudly hang them up on their walls and posted them on their websites counts for much. The next step would then be to have systems and structures in place to deliver on these promises and for customers to be discerning enough to agitate for the promises to be delivered.

The government is also stepping up its efforts to deliver service to Citizens with every ministry, agency and department subject to a performance contract and the cabinet secretaries accountable for the overall service delivery. The public rating of public service has also served to put leaders on their toes if for nothing else to avoid the shame of being on a list-of-shame for non performance. The country was also pleasantly surprised by the recent introduction of the pilot citizen services center – Huduma, put up as an integrated one stop shop where citizen services are to be provided from one central location.

By and large there have been major service improvement milestones in both the public and private sector and there is a growing consciousness to put customers at the center of every organization’s focus. The role of customer service is slowly being accepted as critical and appears in many organization charts albeit often not at the very top. It is important to celebrate these baby steps for the much touted adage about every journey starting with a single step holds true, and these baby steps will soon be fully fledged runners’ sprints in the direction of celebrating the Kenyan Customer. Customer service is the driver of business that fuels return on investment and thus requires due recognition. I laud the Institute of Customer Service Kenya for recently launching The Service Excellence Awards 2014 during the customer service week that cut across industry and will seek to recognize, acknowledge and celebrate the success of corporates and individuals that provide exemplary customer service. Indeed the baby steps seem already to be taking off into a baby run at this rate?

The icing on the cake that would make the next 50 years a joy for the Kenyan customer would be to have customer service hold sufficient weight and take its rightful place right next to its sisters marketing, public relations and communications and have a comprehensive curriculum in the country’s institutions of higher learning. Customer service practitioners currently are persons who have studied other professional programmes, have a passion and flair for service and as an offshoot take up customer service roles. There is no degree programme that reads ‘Bachelor of Customer Service’ or say ‘Bachelor of Commerce – Customer Service’. This is indeed a cataclysmic cavity, a gaping canyon that needs to be filled towards the dream of raising the customer service game nationally.

I throw down the gauntlet to all customer service practitioners and enthusiasts to make dramatic history that will make for interesting reporting in the next 50 years by consolidating efforts and rallying together to develop curriculum, creating partnerships to institute customer service as a subject of focus and influencing  government policy, decision makers and opinion leaders to raise the profile of customer service in this country and fly its flag high. And that ladies and gentlemen is our Kenya@50 Customer Service Challenge. Are we up to the task?

Are Some Customers More Equal Than Others?

Most of us have either heard of or read Animal Farm an allegorical novel by George Orwell set in 1917. A simplistic novel about a farm where the leadership of the farm declared all animals on the farm equal in status, but as was discovered in their farm life and leadership tenets, some animals seemed more equal than others a depiction of the happenings in the Stalin era during the Russian revolution. An experience a friend of mine – Let’s call her Mahwam  narrated to me recently on her salon experience had me flash back to my high school days where we read this book with much intrigue, arguing passionately against the injustice of the unspoken inequality. 

So I now ask, in the salon industry, are there some customers that are more equal than others? Are there situations that call for unequal treatment? Mahwam for example, had booked her hair stylist whom we shall call Rose for a 1 o’clock appointment last Thursday to wash up, condition, gel and style up her locks.  She had tried to get a booking the day before but Rose had told her she had another booking, so the appointment was set for Thursday. So Mahwam called up at 1pm to confirm that she was enroute as her office is a 2 minute walk from the Salon and Rose informed her that her previous appointment was quite late, but she knows what she would do to manage the situation. What Rose had planned was to have someone else wash and condition Mahwam’s hair then she’d take time out from the late customer to twist up and gel it into a hairstyle.

So Mahwam went to the salon, and someone else undid her previous hairstyle, and washed her hair which she didn't mind. While the wash was ongoing, Rose came over to the sink and informed her that the late client had refused to have her take a break from her hair and would not let someone else do a bit of it while Rose attended to her. She then requested Mahwam to please have someone else do her hair instead. Mahwam who has had previous unpleasant experiences with other people doing up her hair and had specifically booked Rose  declined indicating that  didn’t  like that proposal  and that she had already made an appointment and wouldn’t have it ruined by another client who did not honour their timing. Rose tried to make the request again but Mahwam was not agreeable wondering what indeed then was the use of an appointment booked 2 days ago if someone else could come and interfere?

To cut the long story short, Mahwam left the Salon with her locks washed but not gelled and twisted and to use her own words ‘looking like a real Mungiki’. The outcome of this incident is that Mahwam has ditched Rose. She acknowledges that Rose does a very good job and she has been with her for a while – in fact she’d changed salons to this new one as Rose had moved from a previous place - but that if accessing her services has proved such a difficult process and that then after securing a booking she’s passed over for another, then she’d rather look for someone else.

I have a few questions to ask at this point. One – was it worth the business received to have a loyal customer leave with a sour taste in her mouth? Two – what could Rose have done differently in this situation to have a favourable outcome for all? And three – besides Rose, what did the management of the Salon do about the situation occurring between an employee and a customer in their establishment?

Thinking about this unfortunate incident, the message out to Mahwam as a customer was that she was indeed not as important as the previous customer and that the rules of the game could be twisted to suit someone else who turned up late for their appointment. Many of us have been in a situation where we are in the middle of having our hair or nails done and the stylist requests to do another quick job in between like an eyebrow shaping or quick styling. Whereas this multitasking does take up some time in between one’s already ongoing procedure, many customers do not mind if  the stylist makes a kind request. However, if the customer is not agreeable, their wish should be honoured for interruptions to service should be at the discretion of the present customer.

In Mahwam’s case, there was outright discrimination. One is left to wonder if the late customer was paying more or having a more expensive procedure done or what motivated the decision to choose who to disappoint?  Was the late customer more important? Rose was indeed out of order and should have had her late customer inconvenienced rather than the one who had followed the rules. Also, if Rose had judged that indeed there would be a problem, it would have been in order for her to let Mahwam know in advance when she called that there was a tricky situation at hand before she reached the Salon in order to have her make an informed decision to still come in to have her hair done or otherwise.

Customer loyalty in the service industry is pegged on how appreciated a customer feels. Does your customer special? Do they feel acknowledged? Do they feel important? If the answer to these three questions is a resounding yes, then you have a loyal customer who will be a raving ambassador for your services.

To have excellent customer service an avoid situations such as Mahwam’s we need to make sensible decisions and remain true to our brand promise and our word. If we have made a particular promise to our customers, we should stick by that and deliver as best possible. Our word should be bankable without second thought. Time is considered very precious with customers’ current busy lifestyles  and any situation deemed to be wasting one’s time or not honouring the preciousness of it, will have the customer easily ditch one service provider for another.

Special treatment should be accorded to all customers in a like fashion. There should be consistency of service and standards upheld for all customers. As is said, one unhappy customer tells 23 others about it and the experience gets wilder with each new telling. And in the case of Mahwam’s not only did she tell her story, but left the Salon and Rose’s services never to return. A bad reputation is quite a challenge to mend and we should endeavour not to ruin it in the first place rather than struggling to redeem it once dented.

So what is our extract from Mahwam’s experience? What does one need to do differently? What should be at the fore of our decision making when faced with two conflicting customer desires? We should at the very basic, look at what was promised and honour that. One may end up disappointing one customer, but even the disappointed customer will acknowledge that even if not in their favour, one stuck by their word and honoured it at all costs and may even reluctantly imagine that the same would be done in their favour if the situation arose.

The experts define a good brand as a promise made and a promise kept. The key question today is – What brand promise is your Salon making to your customers? And are you keeping that promise no matter the cost? Challenge yourself today and start making the difference that will have your Salon be a formidable brand.

Stoking the Fire

I am running, the weather's beautiful, the tarmac beneath my feet that are encased in fabulous Asics Gel Noosa 7 running shoes that cushion every step, feels great. Each step taking me toward restoring a child's sight. Yes I am at the Standard Chartered Marathon running 21km, I am doing my good deed for the month. Life is indeed beautiful.

I am with my friend Monica, who generally  talks nineteen to the dozen. We run and talk and run some more. We are going strong, It is indeed a beautiful Sunday morning. We get to the 10km mark, and the heel injury that has been dogging me for the past few months begins to knock at the base of my foot. I ignore it, willing it away, squashing it out of existence and push for another kilometer. By this time the knock has turned into a pounding, the injury refuses to  lie still and be quiet, it comes out guns blazing, asserting who is boss. I slow down to a limping run. Monica looks back at me. I point at my foot. She nods knowingly, and as is the case with everyone around me, they are acutely aware of my heel injury and had tried to persuade me to keep of the marathon or at least if I insisted on doing it like I had, to walk the route.

I wasn't about to listen to the nay sayers, after all what was a mere heel to put me down? A tiny part of my body that resides underfoot? No no no no - I had declared earlier that if it was some significant body part like my heart or lungs or brain, that those would be worth considering, but not my heel.

I was however eating humble pie. The heel I had dismissed was grinding me to a halt literally. I limped along determined, ignoring the sympathetic looks from fellow runners. As we got to about the 14 kilometer mark, just after the  turning near Panari,  I fell into step with other walkers, trying to block out my foot's protestations as we walked. 

Right then, I looked ahead and on the far left by the roadside near Eka Hotel, I saw my children. Standing by the roadside about 50 meters ahead, scanning the crowd of runners, looking for their Mum. We live not too far from Mombasa Road and my children had come out to look for me and cheer me on. I took one look at their anxious faces, looking out for me, then looked at my misbehaving foot  and then at them again and from sources unknown to me the power of Usain Bolt took over my body and I began to run, I ran with the wide strided gait of David Rudisha, and ran with the speed of Mo Farah.  I ran past my children, gave them an enthusiastic energy filled Olympic style wave, saw their eyes light up as they waved back, and   I kept on running. And as I couldn't quite determine just how far their little bright eyes could see, I kept running for about a kilometer then literally ground to a halt, dragging my bad leg after me. Walking painfully, inching along.

The people around me were decidedly perplexed at how I had gone from limping hobbler, to marathon sprinter, to foot dragger in minutes. I pushed on, ignoring their expressions of concern. I had to finish. The ambulance personnel drove up and said ' Mama Tukubebe?' 'Mama can we carry you?' I fervently turned down their offer. I was determined to finish and so I did. Crawled painfully to the finish line and received my finisher's medal. 

I got home to a heroes welcome. My children were extremely proud of me. My elder son put my medal around his neck and showed it off to the entire court. My younger son told anyone who cared to listen 'My Mummy was running so fast! She was passing people!' I looked at my proud children and the excruciating pain in my right foot suddenly didn't matter in the least. It was worth the pain ten times over.

When I look back at this incident, the lesson I draw is that  when there's something significant at stake, then one can surmount all manner of obstacles to achieve their dreams. What was at stake here was the need to not disappoint my loved ones that transcended physical pain. And so I put it to you that, when indeed there is something that means a lot to you at stake, you will go beyond your comfort zone literally to achieve it. Nothing will stand in your way. And so therefore when I took the bold leap to abandon employment and delve into the world of consulting there was too much at stake. Lives literally depending on me. And so in essence, when I start to make mediocre excuses and give my work less attention than it deserves to catapult me to the next level, I think about my marathon adventure and remind myself the ultimate prize I am gunning for, the vision for victory of the game I am playing and the high stakes I have wagered in the game of life - and I keep pushing and keep stoking the inner fire to keep burning. And I challenge you to do the same too.

The Techie's Dilemma on Customer Service

This article first appeared in Business Journal Africa - Empowering Africa's Entrepreneurs - Issue No 162 of Oct 2013

Picture this scenario and reflect on just how familiar it sounds… Your computer is frustrating you thoroughly, it is behaving in a manner likely to suggest that it will not cooperate with the instructions you are meting out. You are unable to retrieve the application you would like to use or your computer for no apparent reason is just hanging there winking at you, not responding to your commands, brazen with impunity. Had it been a youthful generation Y Kenyan it would have in brush script plastered on the screen ‘Uta Do?’ (So???) In the spirit of not giving up you have made several attempts at rebooting and troubleshooting that have borne no fruit. So you do what you need to do and call up the ICT support person in your organization’s ICT department. And right here begins ‘The Techie’s Dilemma on Customer Service.’

So the gentleman from support comes over( no gender bias intended – for some unfathomable reason, the support chaps are next to always gentlemen), listens to your computer woes, takes one look at you then at the computer, touches one thing and only one thing, clicks on it and voila! everything sorts itself out. And the good gentleman after performing this magical act looks at you like you are a complete dunderhead with regards to ICT matters. Ok yes yes yes you are and if you were not you’d have performed that magical thing that he did right there, but does he have to shoot those looks that spell ‘idiot’?

The thing about customer service which is the main function of an ICT help desk or support desk is that it requires a tricky balance between being a technical person able to diagnose and troubleshoot users’ problems whilst understanding their needs and being a people oriented customer service type person. Would this be an outlier? Is this something completely unexpected, out of the box and too good to be true? The two more often than not most unfortunately do not go together. People with customer service flair are very often found in their line of work, handling customer service portfolios and dealing with people, and people who are highly technical and great at working intimately with gadgets and gizmos are just that – techies.

So what does it take for the techie to be aligned towards talking to people and helping them out even when their queries and needs seem so simplistic and a total waste of precious techie innovation time? How does the techie balance between the need to quickly rectify the situation and have the user back on track and the need to explain to the user what has happened and what they need to do should the situation arise again? Is this an ‘outlying’ quest? Does this sound like something that would be the exception rather than the norm?

Given that most user support departments are very busy and support officers are in high demand in the organizations they serve, precious time that would be taken to explain to a user in completely lay terms to enable them understand the root cause of their ICT problem, what they would need to do to ensure it either doesn’t happen again or if it does how to sort out the problem on their own, is simply not available. The almost classroom nature that this conversation would need to take including a demo and the participant actually carrying out the troubleshooting process would indeed consume a significant amount of time, a luxury the support department does not have.

The key performance indicators for these departments always revolve around logging of support calls and the turnaround time taken to resolve user issues. The more users served in a day and the quicker the support person arrives and leaves behind a sorted out customer, the better the department’s performance against targets.

The million dollar question therefore remains – is the sorted out customer a satisfied customer? Is there truly a way to balance between dispensing of technical duty and providing good customer service? Or is this one of those ‘outlying’ situations, never to be heard of except for once in a green moon? The customer in question is generally the internal customer. Some of whom require the services of the support department to sort out the external customers coming to the organization directly or procuring goods or services from the organisation. So essentially it is important for this internal user to get the best out of the ‘internal service provider’.

So where does this leave the user support techies? First tip would be to have the support personnel adjust the way in which they look at and perceive the internal user. The user should be viewed as a ‘customer’ and not as a colleague. This will serve to have the support personnel’s attitude towards the user shift towards one of providing customer service literally and not support service. And as is said, attitude is everything. Once this switch happens, the values of helpfulness and patience will dock in of their own accord. Does this sound outlandish perhaps?

The support personnel would also need to literally put themselves in their customers’ shoes and imagine what the person’s frustrations are, their lack of technical aptitude to deal with them and the ripple effect of their not being able to perform the tasks at hand on the overall organization’s achievement of goals. Once the bigger picture is in place, sorting out an individual’s issues will be seen in the bigger picture of enabling the organization to achieve corporate objectives and strategy. This vision should have the values of helpfulness and patience once again dock in of their own accord.

Another initiative the support department would need to engage in that would add value, would be to document the most frequently asked questions that do not require technical support and can be resolved at user level, and to then develop a user guide with step by step simple pictorials and screen shots that outline how to resolve the issue. A ‘Help Desk 101 for ICT Idiots’ manual of some sort. This can then be sent out to the users to save in an easily accessible place. Once a call is placed through to the support desk and the support team establishes that indeed the problem at hand is one of these, they can refer the user to the guide and only if they are unable to resolve the issue then pay a well deserved visit to their desk. This will provide benefits two fold as the support team would save precious time and the user would feel empowered by the self sufficiency of problem resolution. Mission Impossible? Perhaps not…

In the mean time, whilst business are lining up their front office teams and customer facing teams for customer service and brand alignment training, the support team should be right up there in the budget allocation with the rest of them. Friendly and pleasant user support experiences will duly enhance internal customer service, a key ingredient towards achieving excellent external customer service and delivering on the organization’s brand promise.

Customer Service And Your Doctor

This article first appeared in Pregnant Magazine -Pregnancy & Birth Magazine For Today's Woman and Her Man.. Issue 50

Recently my good friend told me a story about a ‘nightmarish’ paediatrician. Her regular doctor had travelled and had someone else sitting in her place. This new doctor apparently was very brisk and all business like. Spoke only to my friend and did not even once turn to talk to or acknowledge her child. In the space of less than five minutes, this doctor had listened to the symptoms, opened up the child’s clothes, palpated his stomach, locating the pain point only by the child’s anguished cry of pain, prescribed medicine and quickly rushed them out whilst ushering in the next patient.  Needless to say after my friend’s narration, I quickly noted down the doctors name and full details. And although I don’t know her and have never seen her, I am completely certain that I will never visit her clinic under any circumstances. I have also told as many people as I know and care about who have children this same story. Bad news does travel fast.

This story got me thinking about why in the medical fraternity, customer care seems to take a back burner compared to other sectors. A doctor’s practice is indeed a business isn’t it? Would any business owner travel and leave their business in the hands of another practitioner who does not greet the main client or make them feel at home? Who doesn’t listen to them, proceeds to prod and pummel them, give them instructions and quickly send them on their way? How good is this behaviour for business? Does this kind of service guarantee that customers will be overflowing at the doorstep rushing in to patronize business? The answer is indeed rather obvious right?

Most of us feel completely powerless while at the doctor’s office. Whereas during interactions in other areas of life, we may be completely empowered and vocal, at the doctor’s we are quite mum and I often wonder why. Is it because we are still rooted in the concept that the doctor is ‘god’ that was installed in our childhood? Where the doctor was this wonderful being sent down to earth to cure us of all our ailments? That all one had to do was go to the doctor’s office, describe one’s problems and a magic pill would be prescribed that would take it all away?

Or is it the then and still continuing over glorification of doctors? Where the medical profession was and is still deemed to be more superior to other professions? Where one’s parents basked in the glory and elevation of societal praise if their son or daughter was studying medicine and were the subject of admiration and envy?

Much has changed and is still changing and the current patient is more discerning and requires much more from their doctor at a partnership level. No longer is the doctor- patient relationship a ‘superior –inferior’ relationship but has moved on to being a ‘partner-in-the-process-of-my- medical-care’ relationship.

Let’s take for example the waiting room experience. Many patients are not clear about the systems in place and the process to see the doctor. This is often left to the dictates of the personnel at the doctor’s front office. Some doctor’s offices run on an appointment system and some on a walk in basis. Whichever way, very often there are patients snuck into the register in between appointments or who are said to have come earlier( although not physically present) and are ushered in to see the doctor before others  waiting in the queue. The machinations of the front office staff, who manipulate the queue and appointment systems, leave many patients whispering in angry protest in waiting rooms.

It is important to rise above being a victim in such a situation and make a polite request to receive an explanation as to how the booking or queuing system works. The persons administrating the system will be hard put not to respond to a polite request to know how exactly the system works. This way, once you know how it works and they know that you know, it will be quite difficult for them to slip in extra patients and do favours to those who have not booked. If all the customers asked or if there was a request from the customers to have the process put on process map on the notice board or on the wall for all customers to be aware, it would curtail the underhand dealings.

Communication is also another area that is besieged with obvious lack and leaves a lot to be desired. What kind of communication does a patient deserve? What questions should you ask your doctor and when? Every patient needs to continuously ask questions. No question should be deemed too silly where your health or the health of your little one is concerned. Ask Ask Ask. We should take a cue from little children going through the ‘why’ phase who usually ask why? why? why? to every question, driving their parents insane as they think up reasonable and rational answers to the innocent questions. The same principle should apply. You should ask the doctor why why why until you have understood exactly what is happening, the reason for the choices being made and why a particular course of treatment or prescription is being recommended.

At no point should one be rushed into a procedure or coerced into doing anything. Seek to understand and be relentless in your quest for information. Conduct research and look up information from a wide variety of sources. Nowadays there’s tons of information online and there are many groups resourceful in providing answers. A word of caution though, is that one should not blindly follow lay advice from peers, but take the proffered advice and bounce it off your doctor for clarification. Do not hesitate to seek a second, third or even fourth opinion. It doesn’t hurt and will only serve to confirm the wisdom of your proposed choice or otherwise. Go with your gut feel. No matter how inexperienced or green you may be in the health matter you are dealing with, respect your instinct and your gut feel and ask for more information until you feel comfortable. You need not reach a point in your life where you say ‘I wish I listened’ Listen in advance. And should your doctor not be willing to answer your questions and provide you the information you seek, look for another doctor who will. Immediately.

And finally, have you ever wondered why there are some doctor’s waiting rooms completely full to capacity, where patients are willing to wait four or five hours to see the doctor? Where patients come ready to wait armed with their novels, tablets, toys to keep their children busy, office work to get on with, files and papers to read? Very busy and upward moving patients from all walks of life willing to wait out their turns patiently? What is it that sustains this phenomenon?

It is the doctor. You will find that once the patient is in the doctor’s room, their experience there is worth the long wait.  Every patient needs to be listened to, to be heard and to feel like they are indeed important. That everything they say however idiotic it may sound, matters and is addressed with the concern it deserves. What is the critical factor that should make one choose one doctor over another?  

A good doctor will handle each patient differently and address their unique and individual needs. A good doctor will remember what is important to you and seek to fulfill their promises. A good doctor will listen to complaints, however trivial they may seem and will take note of suggestions for improvement. Little things will be taken seriously. A good doctor will be available, respond to your telephone calls and texts, apologise should they be late and respect your time. A good doctor will take time to explain their course of action with regards to your treatment and ensure you are fully aware of your condition. They will be quick to let you know the repercussions, dangers and side effects of procedures and ensure you give informed consent. A good doctor will not feel that you are challenging them should you have new or contradictory information to what they have advised. A good doctor will not hesitate to let you know should they not have the answer to your question and need to consult their colleagues to provide you accurate information. A good doctor is your partner and friend who is as willing to learn from you as you are to learn from them. Does this describe your doctor?

Take a good look at the doctor in whose hands you are placing your life and the life of your little one and ask yourself this question – If this doctor made a mistake would they be willing to let me know? If the answer is yes, you are in good hands, if the answer is no, I invite you to take a good look around and find a doctor  whom you trust wholeheartedly – in the literal sense – ‘with all your heart’

Enhanced Customer Response Mechanisms for Manufactured Goods

This article first appeared in Commerce and Industry Magazine Vol 2 No 008 August 2013

When we conjure up images of well blended bone soup with the marrow and herbs all fused into a great tasting broth, the elements that make the sum total of the whole evoke a very warm feeling. When we list the terms customer service and the manufacturing industry side by side in pot, there seems to be some incongruence. No warm feeling emanates and the two are not seen to fit together like hand and glove as is the case with companies dealing directly with customers like those in the hospitality industry, banking, insurance or other retail sectors.

 

What comes to mind when we think of ‘manufacturing’ is lines, conveyor belts, machines, processors and power; all hard, cold, mechanical and functional elements. But giving it serious thought, we actually need to reconsider the fundamental role customer service plays in this industry. And as remote as it sounds with regards to the subject, customer service should in reality form the pivot around which manufacturing spins.

Let’s for starters take a look at the definition of manufacturing from various sources. ‘Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to make things for use or sale’, ‘To make or process raw material into a finished product’ and ‘To make or process goods, especially in large quantities by means of industrial machines’. All these definitions have once common denominator – end product. And naturally therefore, we ask the leading question about who this end product is ‘produced’ or ‘manufactured’ for. Yes - The Customer.

Why then is the end customer not given due recognition by the industry? To further explore this subject, I conducted a small poll amongst a sample group from my friends, colleagues and family and asked what they’d do if they found one of the manufactured products they’d bought had a problem. Many were not sure if they’d return the item to the supermarket or store where they bought it from or if they’d try and contact the manufacturer. What was clear however was that the procedure for complaint was definitely unclear.  Not one single person knew firmly what action to take in event of a product defect. When we juxtapose this with the service industry, it pales in comparison as there, aggrieved parties are very quick to escalate service failure to the supervisor or manager in charge.

I was inspired by these interesting results to further carry out an inspection exercise of the various manufactured goods on our super market shelves, to discern if the existing communication advises customers of what to do in event they encounter a product issue.  My scrutiny included a wide range of products including food products, a host of detergents, pet food, spices, toilet paper, beauty products and household goods. Much to my consternation, the products all have insufficient information on this subject.

 Most products had only the address and telephone contacts of the manufacturer under a title ‘Manufactured by’ or ‘Produced and packaged by’. Some had gone a little further to label the telephone lines ‘customer care’ lines and the closest to being remotely advisory, was on a box of cereal that read “in event of a problem with this product please return it with the label indicating the sell by date to our customer service department”. It didn't have specifics of their physical location or the location of the said customer service department. Three items had a toll free 0800 number that I called and didn't get through in two cases and in one case the number went unanswered.  These unstructured findings of my dipstick poll had me seriously consider preparing a proposal to interest our vibrant research firms to conduct a proper survey on the customer response mechanisms for our manufactured goods.

That all said, the question that still baffles, is how the manufacturing industry is driving change and innovating for the customer. There exists a concerted effort to check on quality control for products with in situ quality control departments, but what actually informs the initiatives in place to repackage, re-invent and revive products? How do they tap into customers’ direct feedback to assess the uptake of products and what needs to be done to tweak them to serve the emerging needs?  How does the industry innovate? It is said that innovative thinking is looking at the customer's routine outside the company’s existing products and then innovating to add value. How then should the manufacturing industry look at the customer and hear them first hand?

Having explicit information on product packaging on how to report a defect, complete with legit contact details should be the first and mandatory step. This packaging should also encourage other regular feedback to institute direct communication that enables the manufacturer hear straight from the ‘horse’s mouth’. This initiative would also have the added spin off of easier identification and reporting that would boost the government’s effort to curb the influx of sub-standard, counterfeit and contra-band good, as customers would be the first to call in to report fake products.

And although players in the manufacturing industry often view their main customers as the distributors and seek to streamline their orders, logistics and supply issues, the heartbeat remains unchecked. The 2011 study from Deloitte on Global Manufacturing Industry Practice says “The business model of global manufacturers is under attack due to changing customer demands. Confronted by competitors, escalating complexity of supply chains and ever-increasing customer demands, manufacturers ignoring the needs of the service business do so at their peril”.  The customer indeed needs to be at the centre of it all.

Given these observations and projections, the manufacturing industry in Kenya needs to rethink their service delivery strategy and build in communication streams that directly flow from the customer. Where applicable, a mechanism to channel back feedback provided to distributors in the supply chain should be built in.

With Kenya’s current economic lift off, manufacturing is among the key productive sectors identified for economic growth and development. This is attributed to its centrality to creation of economic stimulus, and the anticipated jobs for the youth in the counties countrywide, to alleviate poverty. It is therefore both our individual and collective responsibility to add value to the sector as an area that spurs growth towards the country’s achievement of Vision 2030 goals with specific reference to the economic vision in chapter 4 section 4.4 that challenges the nation to manufacture for the entire region.

So to all manufacturer s out there – I challenge you to ‘talk’ to your consumers and to all consumers out there – agitate to ‘talk’ to your manufacturers.

Of Banking and Nurah's Theatrics......

Today I have deeply reflected on the hugely devastating impact a single employee’s reckless behaviour on social media can have to the extent that it may result in bringing down a brand.

A friend put up an exasperated post on FaceBook about his extreme indignation that his bank, where he’d been a customer for the past 15 years, had as a result of ambiguous information, gotten him into a situation where a cheque he’d issued bounced.  For the sake of this post, we shall refer to my friend as Mahrin. In Mahrin’s frustrated post, he indicated he was now shopping for a new bank with the intention to close down his account. As you may imagine, there was lots of empathy and there were lots of proposals from his friends of banks with excellent service that he could immediately switch to. Mahrin’s flabbergast  was arising from the fact that he’d issued a cheque and received a notification alert that it had been paid out and he had a balance of -321Ksh, meaning  his balance was rendered negative as a result of this transaction. I would like to mention at this point that the overdrawn amount was so minimal in comparison to the cheque amount that should one care to do thee mathematics they’d need to multiply it by a hundred and sixty six.

Another friend in Mahrin’s friend’s list from the banking industry, and for the purposes of this post we shall refer to her as Nurah, came to the bank’s defence and explained to Mahrin that indeed it was his fault that he had insufficient funds to service his cheque.  I would like to point out here that this information was not put across politely. In response to her, many friends explained that banks have indeed changed their interactions with customers and that the least the bank could do in this case was to call up their dear customer and explain the circumstances and allow Mahrin to correct the anomaly or find a win-win situation. Nurah responded in quite a defensive manner that this was not the bank’s responsibility and that what was being demanded was not procedural and in fact in her words ‘a favour’ from the bank. This was then met with a volley of stunned responses commenting that banks are nowadays in partnership with their customers and Nurah’s postulation was quite the opposite. One friend quite aghast at this quickly looked up the bank that Nurah works for and indicated that he would soon publish on social media the atrocities she was spewing. And to my utter amazement Nurah responded to this suggestion and I quote “You may go ahead and go viral if you wish!”

I would like to proceed on here to report, that I noted with concern that indeed I wasn’t the only one who thought her behaviour and responses rather out of order. And when more comments appeared to confirm the same, the respondent continued on and on to explain technical details of why one must have sufficient funds in their account and not expect their bank to be their money monitor. And I once again reiterate – quite impolitely.  The friend did indeed fulfill on his promise and in 34 seconds had published the name of Nurah’s bank on the post thread.  As the bank is not one of the mainstream banks, one friend asked what bank that actually was and I couldn’t help but indicate that I didn’t know what bank it was but I was now aware that their employees had wanton audacity online. And like I am sure everyone on the conversation thread did, I looked up the bank’s website and noted with utter dismay that their brand promise is ‘Banking with a Smile’. I can assure you that I wasn’t smiling and I made a mental note to myself to never go near that bank under any circumstances. The said Nurah in various places further along the post kept putting out details quite impolitely,  of why the bank was ‘right’ and Mahrin was ‘wrong’.

At this point I cannot help but swing into my brand strategy management persona and point out three distinct things. One Mahrin’s fundamental complaint was that his bank did not value him despite long sustained customer loyalty, enough to communicate with him about his rather minor cheque situation; two, the bank sent a notification alert to indicate the cheque was paid out when in essence it wasn’t , a fact that the bank was unable to elucidate when he demanded an explanation; three, no amount of explanation on the technicalities of what happened was relevant, the complaint was about lack of and miscommunication and that was the only subject at hand.

So, Nurah’s reckless posting on social media has served to paint her bank in an extremely bad light, create a negative aura around it and have people who have never interacted with it completely switch off and dismiss it without a glance.  As a result of her being bullish, defensive and impolite, her bank has also been banded together with her and is now seen through this lens. For the readers of the FaceBook post and their numerous friends and friend’s friends – you may extrapolate as needed – the negative reflection remains. As we all are aware, brand reputation is built on positive word of mouth and recommendations. This is the most powerful tool a brand can use to build positive brand equity. If a random poll was conducted amongst the sample group roped into Mahrin’s post, the brand performance on the warm -feeling -meter would be in the negative realm. And yes, all of this as a result of one employee’s social media activity.

So what‘s the lesson to learn from all this? In one organization I worked for, employees had to read the company’s social media policy and as part of the employment guidelines and sign that they wouldn't participate in damaging social media activity that would link them to the brand. We are naturally associated with the brands we work for and we serve as either brand ambassadors or destroyers. What factors do those responsible for brand custody need to build in place to ensure that brand damage is not caused by internal customers?  As with this case, it is pretty apparent that the efforts made to protect brand reputation externally should be equally applied inwards, to the extent that employees are so loyal to the brand that they guard its reputation almost with their lives. How does a brand attain this level of internal brand engagement and subsequent passionate brand loyalty?

This is a subject for debate amongst the brand gurus for it is one thing to develop strategy and advocate for internal facing initiatives, and it is another to inspire the people to deliver on the brand promise – Always.

And yes – I will leave this debate for another day………………