Terrible customer service

This happened in Africa/Cameroon.

I wasn’t feeling too good, and I needed to go see a doctor, so I called a clinic not too far from where I was to get information on the open hours and when I could come over for a consultation. The person managing the call center was very slow in picking up the call and even when she did, she seemed busy and in a rush to hang up, she didn’t know their open hours for consultation but rather told me she’ll call me the next day to give me the information. Going there the next day and meeting the person at the counter, it was obvious to me this person didn’t want to be there, she was very rude and easily triggered by everything I said. Keep in mind that I was feeling sickly and picking a fight was the last thing I wanted. After a polite response, I left the clinic and sought for a solution else where.

Overall, that was a horrible experience for anybody, let alone a person who is sick. This is the experience of a good number of persons out there, the horrible customer service we receive from some businesses and employees. In this article, we are going to get a deeper dive and try to understand the underlying problem.

Why does this happen?

The reasons for such behaviors are multiple and vary from person, institutions, circumstances and much more. Here are some of them;

Bad pay:

Africa is notoriously impoverished so a lot of businesses just can’t afford to give a decent wage to their employees, that's why most people there will take jobs they don’t like just because they have to survive and put food on the table. That's why it comes as no surprise that people won’t be joyous or why they’ll treat others so poorly, simply because they don’t like their jobs and only do it under compulsion, waiting for the day they get the chance to get out of there.

Horrible working conditions:

Every business has to aim to get a ROI (return on investment) that means the income coming in should not only cover the cost of running the business but also give some profits to the owner, very often this isn’t the case for most businesses so they end up having to cut costs, that's when you see some employees using the same chairs for decades, the paint job never changed and the overall maintenance of the business neglected. Greed might play a role sometimes, but generally it is because the business isn’t getting its ROI. So in a bid to fix this, the employers put their employees under horrible working conditions, especially because they know they can’t afford to lose those jobs due to the very little competition.

No training:

How much training do you think customer service employees get? Well I can’t speak for every business, but for the few I’ve got to observe, their training just consisted of a little pep talk by the boss when they resumed duties. The rest is just them trying to avoid getting into trouble, so they get to learn how to deal with angry customers, happy customers, pressure, insults and all sorts of characters on the job, there is no telling of what becomes not only of their mental health but also of the quality of service

Huge traffic:

Due to the impoverished nature of Africa, there aren’t many investors looking to go there to create businesses, which means that some sectors of business have very little competition, in certain areas a business might be the only one present offering that particular service and so what happens then? This obviously leads to a huge influx of persons on some days and nobody on others, which is a complex problem to handle by the customer service. They can’t just recruit additional customer service agents for the days of high influx and fire them later on and repurposing personnel on those days will prove counterproductive, that's why you always notice very long queues at certain businesses in Africa.

Corruption:

We can’t mention problems without talking about the elephant in the room. With people earning below minimum wage, it comes as no surprise if they are willing to be corrupted. This eventually leads them to treating everybody who doesn’t give them gifts horribly, but once you pay them a fee under the table, they’ll give you the best customer service they possibly can.

There are many other causes and reasons why, but I think these are the major ones. Now lets talk about the solutions to these problems and some actions businesses can take to address this.

Strong business plan

It all begins with having a solid business plan which sees you not struggling to run your business but rather setting up a business which doesn’t just thrive but also scales. People want to work in places where they can grow and become better, earn more and get the prestige of experience. Nobody wants to work in a place where they’ll have to spend the rest of their lives on the same chair. That's why when you think of setting up a business, ensure that your business plan is very solid and can take you to great heights, not just survive. Even a local grocery store can one day become a huge supermarket with multiple locations, so I don’t see why your business can’t do the same.

Linking pay to quality of service

These people only treat others so poorly because there are no repercussions for them, injuring a client and giving them the worst experience of their lives, that combined with the little competition isn’t going to prevent the customer from coming back. Tomorrow they’ll still be there for the same service, sure with a grudge but without a choice. Linking employee’s pay to the quality of their service will address this problem, and that can be done by getting feedback from customers.

The biggest effort I’ve seen some business here do is to put up a suggestion box which won’t just require for a client to sit down an extra 10 mins and write down an observation or a complaint but also drop his critic in full view of the persons he is criticizing. To make things worst, those boxes never get opened and that feedback never gets taken into consideration.

Adequate Training

It goes without saying that people aren’t automatically born customer service agents and even if they have a good approach with one or two people in the office and a charming smile, that doesn’t make them competent in that field. Being a customer service agent is a hectic job which needs a good amount of training, it comes with a lot of pressure and high risks of making mistakes. They get to meet alot of persons and talk with different personalities and characters, and they play a vital role of representing the company first hand to the clients. What people are going to think about your business will be the experience they had with the customer service agent, so you want to make sure it is a good one.

Building long term bonds

It's disappointing that businesses here don’t realize the importance of quality of service and the impact it has on customer retention. They will complain about not having enough customers while the service they offer is of low quality and little or no effort is done to retain the customers who walked through the door. The customer experience is a sci-fi movie to these businesses and all they care about is shoving down their services into the throats of everybody who walks through the door and emptying the pockets of those same persons, what happens after isn’t their concern.

Well I can’t give you a business lesson here on why it is important to build a relationship with your customers, that will make this article into a book.

Consistent Communication & Leadership

Am sure you’ve heard that education is a major problem in Africa, not everybody has access to it, but what often flies under the radar is the quality of education those who even have access to it receive. Often times it isn’t a complete one, communication and leadership are skills I never learned in all my 20–25 years in school, they are simply skills I picked randomly from watching a lot of movies and following motivational speakers, but the average person has no clue about that. The average businessman is solely concerned with getting his returns and if being a bad leader doesn’t stop him or her from doing so, they aren’t going to spend the effort to change.

This leaves businesses and companies with employees who do what they like, act however they see fit, and struggle to grapple with the lack of communication and leadership in the end. You should rather make sure that even if employees aren’t paid decently, they feel comfortable and informed, they feel inspired by the person leading them and not jealous, they get a pattern to follow and a routine to adopt which will not just see the business thrive but also themselves.

Conclusion

I can’t blame those customer service agents for the negative experience they gave me, sure I would have preferred a positive one and am also sure there are many businesses out there with great customer service. It would be too easy for me to just say those were horrible persons with a wicked heart, which would be the conclusion most people would arrive at, but I hope through this article you’ve seen that the problem isn’t necessarily the person but rather the circumstances in which they are found

Thanks for reading ☺️

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