It is great to celebrate your customers and indeed very many large and small organisations said thank you in many ways during the Customer Experience month of October. In all this excitement, I hope you got time to really ask the customers what they want.
Many customers are looking for efficiency, simplicity and some respect when they transact with you. While some organisations are really trying to get processes simplified, I think as customers, we probably have not made it any easier especially in areas of truthfulness and as a result some companies have gone back to old rudimentary ways of checks and balances before providing a service.Â
They have made it so hard and tedious that by they time you go through the process to get a product or service you were desperate enough to wait or you have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that you are a deserving candidate.
Early this month, I called one of my banks because I needed an online banking hiccup resolved. I was asked eight questions before they could even start working on my issue. Just so you understand the gravity of this I will list them down.
Account number, date of birth, email address, which branch my account was opened, last three transaction on my statement, credit card limit, loan instalment amount and my NIN number. I almost thought coming next was an announcement that I had won the lottery!
Anyway, by the time the young lady asked me the fifth question, I could not have it any more and I protested. I could literally hear fear in her voice as she begged me to give her all the information as it was the procedure and the call was being recorded.Â
I eventually answered all questions and thankfully my issue was resolved the next day. However, I have now added my bank on my prayer list that nothing goes wrong with any of the services I use because I do not want to go through eight questions ever again.
In another bank incident, we requested for a debit card from a joint account where the mandate is either one to sign. To proceed the applicant was told that a letter of consent from the other signatory was a must-have to get this debit card. Nothing could change this procedure even when we escalated the issue thinking we knew the law on mandates and people in high places. We could tell that we were reporting the poor front officers to the people who had issued the instructions on tightening controls which was a very futile attempt for us to get things done quicker and easier. We ate humble pie, wrote the consent letter and got the debit card the following day. Seems people can not be trusted any more even with access to their own money.
Just last week a friend of mine told me how she bought a cement flower pot some where on Jinja road and she had to go through six steps and six different people before she could pay and leave. Moreover, she had two people literally on her heels at every step! Honestly the flower pot was not made of gold, it was just cement. Is there a secret ingredient in making these flower pots? How does the company account for the productivity of all these people?
These are moments when we long for more of the self services to come to Uganda and AI (Artificial Intelligence) to come quicker to our rescue. In the mean time companies continuing to find practical ways to make processes simpler and wait time shorter, kudos to you for listening to the voice of the customer and making our experience memorable.
I am sure there may be some bad apples in the pile of customers but must we all pay the price?
Babra Mehangye Kahima, Customer experience enthusiastÂ