Customer Service - The Deal Breaker?

Good day people. This is the post I promised back in January about the different types of customers. I'll also be giving customer service tips. I had a most hilarious chat with some sisters yesterday and hair salons were unanimously voted as the most customer unfriendly sectors of the economy. I'll be quoting Chioma Nnani (www.chiomannani.com) where applicable. She is many things - a blogger, a writer, a ghost writer etc. She recently released the Fearless Story Teller Online Course. Please check the blog for details of the course. There will be a discount up till March 13, 2015.

I'll start with some of the funniest customers I've encountered. There was a young man that asked me to supply 2 crates of egg. I actually placed a fresh order primarily because of his request. I didn't look closely at the supply enough to realise that the Egg Company had started including the Best Before date on the eggs (positive development, yay). As I got the eggs to the man, he went on to inspect the eggs. He said the BB date of the eggs was too close for him. I asked him if he planned to consume the 2 crates by himself and I don't think that was the case. He asked me why I didn't check the BB date before receiving the eggs. The eggs are usually supplied really fresh. I have many customers that pay more than the price because of the freshness of the eggs (no woman does that, though, lol). He went on to return one of the crates because the BB date (28 days) was too close for him. I thought it was a positive development to have the BB date but see 'wahala' o. I knew I had matured when I collected the crate back from him and I was about to leave. Someone else called me back and bought the crate from me immediately.

I have too many stories of people online that ask for more information about an advertised good or service, waste your time, are uncourteous and eventually don't buy anything or bring in other people to patronise you. I think I have learnt the signs to look out for to determine time-wasters. What I've done now is to include as much details as possible in the advert. Then I have saved on my phone the standard first response that anyone that contacts me. It is composed based on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and updated when any new question arises. It saves me too many back and forths.

Now to the 'juicier' part of the post. I've had horrible customer service experiences but I think these ladies have seen more than I can..I have actually created scenes in banks due to poor service. The most recent poor customer service experience I had was at a salon where the stylist kept using a small-toothed comb on my natural (virgin) hair that I'm nurturing. I politely asked her to use a comb with a wider tooth and she claimed there was none in the salon. She kept torturing me with the small-toothed comb while making snide comments about my virgin hair. When the pain became unbearable, I collected the small-toothed comb and seized it from her. When she realised I wasn't going to give it back, she 'miraculously' found a wide-toothed comb in the SAME salon! Smh!

I told my sisters that inspite of the painful poor customer service experiences I've had (pun intended, lol), I'll still go back to a store that sells good cheap products except the customer service experience is dirt-low crappy. They decided to share some of their experiences. Please let me know which of them is your favorite.

 One of my sisters said she went into a shop once and something she touched fell. The shop attendant was so rude. The same shop attendant told my sister's husband that she can't open the door to him because she's scared of thieves. She says "A lot of sales girl are illiterates that don't have a clue what it takes to establish a business. They believe they are doing you (the customer) a favour. That is why we don't have service companies last."

This one had me in stitches - "You walk into a shop and the sales girl or boy is relaxed on the sofa and is waiting for you to greet first then swings his/her arm: check there." For real???
She continues "I called a bank asking why I was charged 1 naira more and I heard them giggling in the back. Troublesome customer looking for 1 naira. When they saw my email, hmmmm..."

Chioma Nnani says a market woman that sells fish and swears like a sailor is better at customer service than the person she got clothes from. Ewo! She says the clothes and shoes are very lovely but she'll rather direct anyone that asks to where her supplier bought them from than direct them to her.
Chi-Chi continues "You're spending money and they think they're doing you a favour. With your own money, oh! And when you don't return, but choose to go to their neighbour; they will start doing unnecessary binding and casting. Accusing their more business-savvy neighbour of witchcraft.
"That's how one GT Bank staff was forming and I told him plainly, 'I am your employer as long as I have an account here. Even if my account balance is one Naira. By the way, as long as you showed up for work, don't kid yourself that you've anything better to be doing than attending to me!' The guy was just looking at the 'mad customer from London' in shock. I don't mind being known as difficult as long as I get what I want. Nigerians don't like being known as troublemakers, except on social media."

She advises that one way to know if a supplier/vendor will give you headaches with their service is to check their referrals. Do they have any? Or are they just blowing their own trumpet?
"Nobody will tell you that their service is terrible but if they don't have even one customer that agrees with their "I am the best at what I do" claim; they are lying."

 Another sister says it's the big salons she detests the most. Most of the girls that work there are just so rude that she'll rather call someone and pay for home service. She says she won't pay for some rude person to insult her, no matter who else you make hair for.
Hear her "Whenever you insist on having things done well you're tagged impossible but I can't be bothered. I keep changing you till I get what I like.

 A sister notes that a lot of business owners don't take time to educate or train their staff on simple etiquettes and how to treat customers.

Business owners, it's up to you now. Let's hear from you. Is it so hard to please customers here in Nigeria? Or are there real operational challenges that make it expedient for you to subject your paying customers to such horrible experiences?

I'll like to balance this by saying that I've met wonderful suppliers and vendors. I can't say that I've met wonderful service providers, though their businesses will benefit MORE from referrals by satisfied customers.

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