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Showing posts from 2017

IT'S A WRAP FOR 2017 !

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Happy New Month to you Amazing readers. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for being with me every step of the 2017 journey. There is a lot we have achieved together as a team and you deserve all the reward as much as I do. We took to a different level our quest to ensure that things are done right in our business industries in relation to customer service. Some companies were commended as others were also reminded to do things right. Feedback from some companies were amazing and their commitment to work on areas identified was superb whiles others did not respond as expected. One thing that I am sure of is that you my reader has been empowered in more ways than one. I am confident that we as customers can now demand for and ensure that we receive the services we are entitled to - our monies worth be bold to point out to our service providers where they go wrong in order for them to right them commend them where applicable keep to our part of th

ONLINE REGISTRATION PORTAL FOR BUSINESSES

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So we were informed it was going to make life a lot easier for us. No more hustling, no middle men, no bribes and we would actually get the real deal. That sounded so awesome and we were looking forward to it. So I tried the first time it came up in April 2015 and it did not work for me. I figured it might have been on pilot so I could try later and it would work for me too. After a long wait I decided to try it again after Joy FM’s news item on the subject again in October 2017. It looked like nothing really had changed on their website for the past year or so. Some tabs were not working and most especially the “company registration” bit was not working either. I spent a long time trying to figure out and soon it was getting frustrating. I know in instances like this your next thought and place of refuge would be customer support but guess what? They do not exist here. That reminded me that the first time I tried to go through a registration (2015) I sent a mail to th

FACE TO FACE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, HOW GOOD OR BAD IS IT?

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So We have been discussing customer service via phone and online for some time now. Amazing responses from you all. We appreciate it so much, let’s keep it up and help good customer service prevail. So I had some questions in mind about how other professionals including those we have spoken about handle customers face to face. Would it be any different from over the phone and online? I visited a number experience centers one weekend to have an experience.I have not seen too much traffic in the various locations on most days but this time it was quite full to capacity with customers who needed assistance. First stop was MTN office which had some customers standing (first thing that caught my attention). There was a lady right by the door who I believe is to welcome customers and find out what they were there for and then direct them accordingly but she was not doing that. She was busy chatting with a man standing by her rather than attending to customers.  I did not see a smil

MARKETING OF INSURANCE SERVICES. HOW WELL DOES YOUR COMPANY DO IT

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Have you ever had a cold call from an insurance company or Agent and the person you spoke to had no idea what they are talking about? Well I had a similar experience from a leading company’s insurance personnel. The people I spoke with seem to be totally lost and had no idea what they were selling to me. Questions I asked them in my quest to understand better seem to rather confuse them and on 3 occasions they all told me they wanted to get more details and call me back. One of them was bold enough to tell me he had no idea what I was talking about and he had not been taught that. Amazed, I picked up the phone to call them back with the hope of getting someone who can be more helpful. It so happened that the best they had were those that called me. This time also I spoke to 3 Agents and they all hanged up on me at a point. So you are to convince someone to put their savings into a life, death, accident and health policies and you tell the fellow you have no idea how it works

ONLINE SHOPPING, AN EXPERIENCE BUILT TO LAST OR A TOTAL SHAM

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So online shopping is becoming if not totally a craze in our part of the world. I’ll say it is part of social advancement which is a good thing. As much as it is a social advancement, I believe you my cherish reader can attest that there are some positives and negatives about it. I see you nodding to that. It makes life super easy if you get the right product or service you’re searching for, the right company to offer and deliver at the “nick of time”. Same way it can be quite frustrating if things do not go well. There are a couple of good online shops out there doing a good job and there are others that are super terrible at what they do. Sometimes not entirely their fault but there should be some measures put in place to manage the situations as they come. They do offer some great stuffs but they have “?” with some of their T&Cs and processes. A very recent experience was when I had challenges with payments after my purchase and needed to get to the team to rectify.

CUSTOMER SERVICE IN THE CALL CENTER - MTN

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Happy New Month to you my wonderful reader. I wish you especially the best in the next half of the year and I wish us a better, more fun, educative and interesting journey ahead. We continue our journey through the call center as planned. Kindly subscribe so you get all future posts. When was the last time you contacted your network provider? Was it to commend them? Make a complaint, enquiry or a request? How would you rate them? Most people will agree to the saying that all the network providers are the same and they do practically the same bad and good things. Not sure of your opinion on that though. I picked up my phone and called one of my providers over the past days for some assistance and the experience was always different. You know in Ghana you can afford to have more than one since they are not always reliable. My experience during every interaction was different. If it is bad, it is super bad and the persons in question do not bother at all. I certainly did no

CUSTOMER SERVICE IN THE CALL CENTER - ECG

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Good to have you all cherished readers in this month as well. The journey continues still looking at customer service in our industries in Ghana. I am glad to let you know that our focus for the next few months would be call centers from various industries. In this article, we will look at a utility provider and how they respond to us as customers whenever we reach out to them. Tell me, when was the last time you called a call center? How was your experience? Today we look at a major service provider in our country Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). I believe there is a lot to be said about this company and everyone have their own share of history with them. Our focus is their call center in Accra. So we’re being informed that there is no more “dum sor” but believe me what I experience is more than I did during those times. I called the ECG call center one fine morning because the situation was getting worse and that’s the experience I am sharing today. Hopefully you would

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE LOOKING AT CUSTOMER SERVICE IN RESTAURANTS

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I would like to thank you my cherished reader for this wonderful journey for the past six months. I am grateful for all your thoughts and comments and I will be more grateful to always have you to be there for me as well as introducing this blog to others also. Always good to share good stuff with others to benefit from as well. As always said, your feedback is valuable to me and is always appreciated. We have journeyed at least six eat outs in this country and looked at how the customer - the most important person in the business is valued. Some were good, others average and some not good. In all each one was encouraged to do better that they were doing. Before I move on to the next place or possibly next industry as we half the year, I thought I would take a trip down memory lane to find out how well our partners are doing. I was surprised in a good way for some but.... So the good first huh, everyone loves to hear that first. KFC is still doing well in all branches in Accra a

The Ghanaian and Customer Experience 103

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Hope the month started out well for us. We are still early in the month, believe it will get better if it is not yet. This blog is to recognize employees and employers effort to deliver good customer experience, encourage others to learn from them and do same as well as to keep the company(ies) in question on their toes and ensure the right things are done to deliver nothing short of the best. Shall we continue with our journey we have been on since beginning of the year. If you have missed the earlier ones they are still available for you to read and enjoy. So I went to this popular restaurant on a fine Sunday afternoon. Not too many people in the eating area and a bit quiet but guess what? It took more than 10 minutes for a waiter to approach me. I was given a menu which I actually took a long time to go through because I did not have much to choose from. I actually wanted something different from the normal rice varieties, fries and salads but it did not work out so good. I

The Ghanaian and Customer Experience 102

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This blog is to recognize employees and employers effort to deliver good customer experience, encourage others to learn from them and do same as well as to keep the company(ies) in question on their toes and ensure the right things are done to deliver nothing short of the best. So early on this year we heard about Eddy’s Pizza and I promised that others would also be shared whether good or bad.  Well this visit was to a known restaurant in Atomic Junction just before Madina. I came to the point of believing that either customer are not demanding for what we deserve or that our service providers are just taking us for granted without “fear or favor”. In this second place, I had to wait for more than 5 minutes before I was approached by a waiter. He was courteous and did the normal “apology lines” as done always and requested to take my order after handing me a menu. Before we continue I would like to ask you this question. Have you been to a place where the menu is given and almo

The Ghanaian and Customer Experience 101

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This blog is to recognize an employee’s effort to deliver good customer experience, encourage others to learn from him and do same as well as to keep the company in question on their toes and ensure the right things are done to deliver nothing short of the best. The company in question today is Eddy’s Pizza and it would be yours tomorrow so I urge you to clean up your house so you are not BUSTED. Whiles customer service has evolved the word over, Ghana is still in the process of fully embracing and working with it to ensure growth and customer satisfaction for customers in the various industries. A year or two back some company names were consistently on the list of bad customer service but I must say that change is coming. We still have more to do and everyone must get involved. Today I share with you a good customer service experience from a lad in a known eat out in Ghana. Being nice to people should come natural to everyone as long as you are a person and