ALL I KNOW ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE I LEARNED AS A PAPER BOY

As a kid growing up in the less-than-opulent lumber towns of central Oregon, I understood early that I possessed a “customer service” mentality.
My first venture? Door-to-door sales; a publication called Grit – “Celebrating Rural America Since 1882”. I made a nickel for each sale. In my mind, though, I knew each customer had to be worth more to my pre-adolescent enterprise than five cents a week. I was a 52-pound business-man in my Toughskins and Keds – and I wanted more, for me and my customers.
Here, at a very young age, is where I learned that exceeding expectations through high-quality customer service – perhaps even with a less-than-extraordinary product – moves your company toward achieving even the loftiest goals. A culture of excellent service becomes your brand… and customers become your champions.

Relationships are Royalty
Central to customer service is the art of building relationships. Customers, vendors and strategic partners all have a choice of who they work with – and they generally choose to do business with people they like (or at least who they respect). Offer a smile or anecdote. Ask how they’re doing. Engage in meaningful (read “non-work”) conversation. This interaction means a lot – in 1970, and now when we relate through Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook.

Central to customer service is the art of building relationships

Do What You Say You’re Going to Do
My first week, an elderly man paid me one month in advance. One condition: “I want the paper placed right… here,” he said, pointing to a specific spot on his porch. “With the last guy, I had to open the door all the way just to get my paper… I won’t tolerate that.” Happy for the dollar, I said, “Yes, Sir!” Two weeks later, however, I forgot my end of deal. The man, whose walking aid didn’t go down three inches to the porch without tremendous effort, fired me. Broken promise. Lost customer.
Never Throw Away an Opportunity to Hand Deliver
I learned quickly that a message or product delivered personally was good for business. In our digital world, of course, we know that hand delivery isn’t always possible. What a difference is made, however, when we hand-write a personal thank you note or go out of our way to smile. Or maybe offer to buy a customer or social media friend a cup of coffee when you’re in town. All good, personal ways to exceed expectations – and “hand deliver” your brand.

What a difference is made when we hand-write a personal thank you note

You Can Never Get Up Too Early (Metaphorically)
When I was selling Grit, my customers were always up early. So was I, partly because they respected me for getting up early to get my work done – and also because I wanted them to see me working hard. When do your customers do their best work? Or use your product the most? Do your customers see you?
Surprise Your Customers
It is amazing what happens when your customers are genuinely, pleasantly surprised by your brand. When I heard grandkids were visiting my customers, for example, I would tape pennies or Bazooka gum to the inside of the newspaper – creating a page-by-page treasure hunt for the children, and a pleasant distraction for my customers. In the scheme of things, not a huge deal – but a terrific way to extend the relationship, gain referrals, and create customers for life… for, literally, pennies.

WRITTEN BY MARK BABBIT CEO Switchandshift.com

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JULIUS AGWU RECOUNTS HIS BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE WITH ETISALAT

Funny man Julius Agwu is extremely not happy with law enforcement after he was defrauded while in the United States.

The comedian said his sim card was swapped and whoever did it used it to gain access to his credit cards and used them in Italy.

Agwu said,

”While I was in America to see my new baby, I suddenly realized that my Etisalat line was inactive. I couldn’t receive and make calls. I went to Etisalat office in Hilton to complain and to discover what the problem was. I was told someone asked the company to swap my line. I got very worried immediately and queried them.

How could someone’s line get swapped without the authorization of the owner? Even as the owner of the line, I would issue an authorization letter to effect that. I was worried because I personally registered the line and I told them I want to know the staff that granted the request but they refused. It was however rectified that very day by one Miss Joan and I was able to make use of the line again momentarily, for that day only. I later made several calls to the customer care and till now, nothing has been done.

Due to their negligence, I have lost few jobs because that is the only line some clients could reach me on. Another painful aspect of it all is that the person broke into my credit card account and it was used in Rome and Milan. And as a matter of fact, I didn’t go to those places. I have to block the card because I have lost money.

The credit on the line was also transferred to the new line by the person who swapped it. There is a high level of impunity in this country and nobody cares. I’m crying out so that people can know how shameless and useless some brands can be. I will take this matter to the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) and National Human Rights Commission. I should be fully compensated because even till now, the problem has not been rectified.”

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MTN ENHANCES CUSTOMER CONVENIENCE WITH AUTOMATIC AIRTIME TOP UP

MTN, mobile network operator, has introduced a service called MTN Auto Top-Up that will enable customers conveniently and routinely top the airtime on their phones. MTN is ushering in a new era of comfort for its high value customers through a partnership with Nigerian banks. Shedding more light on the service, Larry Annetts, Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria, said that MTN Auto Top-Up enables subscribers to recharge their mobile account or pay their bills from available deposits in their bank accounts with ease and convenience.

The service, he added, is yet another addition to the growing plethora of innovative ways by which MTN customers can replenish airtime credit.

“Our objective is to deliver better value to our customers than anyone else.”  “The innovative offering is consistent with keeping our customers in tune with tools that enhance their productivity. This service brings a new level of convenience to our esteemed customers as it is designed to deliver speed and simplicity”, he added.

On her own part, Christabel Onyejekwe, executive director of NIBSS, said; “This service would give MTN’s subscribers an easy and very comfortable means of auto-recharging.

“The service leverages NIBSS interoperability capabilities to ensure smooth and seamless payment from subscribers’ account in any Nigerian bank with no Payment Card required.” To make use of this service, subscribers need to log on to their bank internet platforms and perform a one-off recharge of  their airtime or set up a recurring standing order mandate for airtime top up on any date of their choice. Whatever option chosen, the equivalent amount of money is debited from the deposit account and the airtime value is credited to the phone.

Wale Goodluck, corporate services executive, MTN Nigeria said, “This service is in line with our commitment to delivering a bold new digital world to our esteemed customers wherever they may be. We’ll continue to enrich the lives of our customers by providing them with a robust bouquet of innovative products and services.”

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OVER 50 AERO CONTRACTORS PASSENGERS STRANDED ALL NIGHT IN ABUJA

Dozens of passengers were on Friday night till Saturday morning stranded at the Abuja airport as the airline they paid to transport them failed to do so.
The passengers had each paid several thousands of naira to be flown by Aero Contractors to Lagos from the Nigerian capital.
The flight, AJ132, was scheduled to leave Abuja at 6:30p.m. on Friday
In what has become a norm among domestic airlines operating in Nigeria, the flight was announced to have been delayed. Early on Friday, the passengers got a message from the airline announcing a delay in the flight by about 3 hours.
“This is to inform you that our flight AJ132 from Abuja to Lagos Today the 8th of November 2013, has been rescheduled to 21:40hrs due to operational reasons. Check in starts two (2) hours before and ends forty(40) minutes before departure. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. For rescheduling, please call: 01-6284140 or mail tickethelpdesk@acn.aero,” the airline said in the message sent to the passengers.
Many of the passengers arrived earlier than two hours before 9:40 p.m. for the trip.
“Based on their message, I got to the airport around 7:30 p.m.,” one of the affected passengers, Charles Musa, said.
Before 9:30 p.m., the airport announcer announced that the flight had been further delayed with many of the passengers lamenting the situation.
“They still announced and assured us that we were going to fly to Lagos. And so when they announced that a plane had landed from Lagos, we were asked to queue up for boarding,” Mr. Musa, a Lagos-based lawyer said.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the plane from Lagos, which was also a delayed flight, arrived Abuja some minutes before 12 midnight.
After the passengers in the plane disembarked, the Lagos-bound passengers queued and were ready to board.
“Surprisingly, the pilot just came out with his crew and said he was not told to fly back to Lagos. He said he would not fly,” Mr. Musa said.
The passengers were thus left stranded at the tarmac around midnight with no official announcement about their flight from Aero. Some junior staff of the airline, however, told them they would be flown to Lagos at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday but kept mum on where the passengers would stay for the next seven hours before the flight.
The Abuja airport is one of many being remodelled by the aviation ministry, with only makeshift facilities available for both arriving and departing passengers. The airport currently has no facility for a resting area or a hotel.
“Some of us decided to go sleep inside the plane as no other provision was made for us by Aero.
“The plane was locked, but there was another Aero plane nearby. About 30 passengers including foreigners therefore went to sleep inside the other plane,” Mr. Musa said.
The passengers were, however, asked to leave the plane by soldiers at about 3:00 a.m. on Saturday with many of them sleeping on the floor at arrival lounge of the airport.
Aero, which says its mission is to “provide a safe, reliable, efficient and competitive service to our customers”. again delayed its flight on Saturday morning, with the almost 60 passengers finally travelling to Lagos at about 8:00 a.m.
“ We left Abuja at 8:00 a.m. No apologies, no compensation from Aero. It was sad, one of the passengers was at the airport since 1:00 p.m. on Friday,” Mr. Musa said.
Aero Contractors, which won the ‘Best West African Airline of the Year 2012 Award’ at the West African Tourism and Hospitality Awards, refused to respond to PREMIUM TIMES’ enquiry on the treatment of the passengers, and any possible compensation.

CULLED FROM PREMIUM TIMES

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CUSTOMER IS KING BUT THERE IS A KING MAKER

It is morning and the hall is already bustling with activities; staff members are dressed in their best Ankara dresses. It has become a yearly tradition of showcasing their best Ankara wears, stilettos or sandals, braids packed in doughnuts, faces glazed with Tara make-ups, smiles miles too wide, ladies sashaying and the men acting super cool – all of them huddled together, looking like glossy characters in a glam magazine.

It is customer service week. This week-long international celebration of customers and the service people is done every first week of October. For many banks, the halls are well decorated like it is Christmas already. Business opens each day with exaggerated fanfare and customers are stunned by the smiling faces waiting to serve them. Candies and cakes are served intermittently, or kept at points where customers would easily serve themselves. And on the last day of the celebration, a TGIF party is thrown in the banking hall or at an expensive club and staff members party like the world would end that night.

Services have become homogeneous; what is obtainable in one bank is found in the next. The only difference is in the service delivery. And for a business that wishes to sustain progress, emphasis should be placed on “satisfaction.” I will come back to this later.
Customer service determines if customers make return purchases or if they would quietly end their business relationship with you. Days are gone when customers are treated like they had come to beg for crumbs falling off the banks’ tables. Internet brought about online real-time banking and it swallowed the old manual ledger system. This led to aggressive competition; and yes, competition became the yardstick that whups your ass silly until you do like your mates are doing. Else, close shop and get out of the way. Or park well and look out for what your competitors are not doing well. Steal ideas and re-package them in shiny wrappers. Just like it was done with some savings accounts now having current account features, or the current account with saving account features. Businessmen are lured in for better, fleshier kill. They become your prey for life.

The April 2013 KPMG report on Banking Industry Customer Satisfaction Survey (BICSS) rated GTBank as the most Customer-Focused Bank while Zenith Bank occupies the second position. You are tempted to ask – “What the hell are other banks doing at below 70% customer satisfaction since these two banks never got to 80%? Isn’t that some sort of abuse on their loyal customers’ sensibilities?”

Were you to carry out an independent internal customer satisfaction survey and ask staff members these basic questions – Are you satisfied? Why are you not satisfied? Does it affect your service delivery? – you would be alarmed at the responses or the tensed silences. But in those spaces where bankers meet to talk over bottles of beers and nkwobi – at bars or eateries, at wedding ceremonies or parties – you would finally listen in, after guards have been let down, to the emotional topics that range from sexual abuse to mental abuse to victimisation to under-appreciation to under-payment to target-chasing.
Abuse leads to silence or obvious revolt.

For the abused housemaids, you discover that they revolt these ways – from poisoning their madam’s food, to pissing in babies’ meals, to beating their madam’s children, to locking up the kids in dark wardrobes – their own version of an-eye-for-an-eye. They become the horror story.

For the banker, they kill customer satisfaction and this is a huge threat to a business.
Set up a perfect system, design an easy process flow, put in the disgruntled staff, the customer walks in and you have bad service. Then KPMG captures the bad service.
Our emotions determine our moods which determine how we serve. There is just little much our sensibilities can take. Because while you strive to keep the positive spirit, you get hit by the nausea that comes with under-appreciation, especially when your employer pays bonuses to the “full staff members”, while you, the under-paid outsourced staff, who does the job of a full staff, who is paid 30% the salary of the entry-level full staff, who faces the customers, who can kill the business “maintains” because “good things cometh to those who wait upon the Lord.” You struggle against these forces, against sexual abuses or victimisation. And then you explode. And your customers suffer.

KPMG camera clicks.
What the financial industry should do every customer service week is:
Contract KPMG to carry out internal customer satisfaction survey
Create a department to deal with issues raised
Set up a department to monitor when last a staff was promoted or was allowed to go on leave

And this: why would a bank outsource their staff from companies owned by their executive directors, or managing directors (as was the case of Cecilia Ibru), or relatives/wives and friends of these directors?

And this: the degree of job responsibility and risks this cadre of staff members are exposed to should be simultaneous with their income.

In between these issues are the reason superior customer service is yet to be achieved in our banking industry. This is the reason we are haunted with the reports of disgruntled staff ruining the banking application software or crumbling the day’s business. And this can be checked.

Truly, the customer is king; but the staff member is the king maker.

Written by Ukamaka Olisakwe

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STERLING BANK LAUNCHES THE STERLING ARSENAL DEBIT CARD

The highly publicized partnership between Sterling Bank and Arsenal Football Club has been formally sealed with the launch of the co-branded debit cards for the use of millions of fans and card holders in Nigeria.

As part of Sterling Bank’s unique focus on satisfying the deepest needs and passions of its customers, these co-branded debit cards, (available in VISA and VERVE) are one of numerous benefits of the initial three-year partnership between the bank and Arsenal Football Club.
Commenting during the event which held at The Emirates Stadium, London, Yemi Adeola, the CEO of Sterling Bank Plc explained that “the initiative underscores the Bank’s strategic retail market focus while Ivan Gazidis, the CEO of Arsenal Football Club highlighted the rich history of the Club and ‘noted the deep similarities in history and values between both organizations; promising that “the Club will remain true to its founding ideals”.

With the formal launch now off the ground, Sterling Bank customers; especially the Arsenal fans and holders of the Sterling-Arsenal co-branded debit cards can now begin to enjoy access to Club-related benefits and incentives to help them live their passions as well as more value-added privilegessuch  as official merchandise and tickets to see the team in action at Emirates Stadium, youth coaching clinic for coaches on the auspices of Sterling Bank in Nigeria and lots more.
Sterling Bank Plc is a leading commercial bank in Nigeria and one of the country’s fastest growing banks. Originally incorporated in 1960 as NAL Bank (the country’s first investment banking franchise), it acquired the operations of the erstwhile Equitorial Trust Bank in November 2011 in pursuit of its growth and expansion plans. The bank currently operates out of 165 branches, about 4,648 POS and 241 ATMs across the Nigeria.

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ACCESS BANK FRUSTRATES ME

I have an account with Access Bank Plc, Iwo Road branch Ibadan, Oyo State. On January 28, 2012, I lodged N12, 000 into the account at the Bodija branch of the bank to aid the processing of an admission to a university in Canada. But the money was not credited into the account. Because of this, the University of Regina, Canada, where I was seeking admission could not deduct the sum of $100 from the account. My receipt number was 11452613. Despite repeatedly visiting the bank to complain that I was getting negative report from the school website about my payment, nothing was done until the admission closed on March 1, 2012. This made me lose a 4-year-academic scholarship that covered my family’s movement to Canada.

Previously, the bank also failed to effect a payment of N35,000 I made through a check number 061921511 to an insurance company for Premium Life Assurance on my daughter on January 8, 2011.

Even when I instructed my lawyer to write the bank in March 2012 through its South West Regional Office, Ring Road, Ibadan and Bodija branch, there was no response for several months despite evidence that the letters were received.

Olusola Z.A, Plot 7, Alapata Ojoo, Ibadan Oyo State, zealwitease@yahoo.com, 08144866xxx

Culled from Saturday Punch,November 3rd 2013.

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WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE

We all know that customer service is important, but did you know it's this important:

78% have bailed on a transaction or have not made an intended purchase because of poor service experience.
A typical business will only hear from 4% of its dissatisfied customers.
Loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase.
It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience.
Consumers buy from people they like, people they can create a relationship with. It's no longer enough to just provide customer satisfaction, you just create customer loyalty. Customer service is a vital part of marketing your business. Why? Because consumers talk about customer service, they tweet about customer service and they will tell every person they know about your customer service.

How much time have you taken to evaluate the customer service of your business? Perhaps it's time to re-evaluate the importance.

Have you lost focused on your most valuable asset - your customer? Customers will pay more to ensure superior customer service, but many businesses are lacking in that department.

As a 9 year old says when asked about the meaning of customer service, "Customer service is providing "service to customers." When it's put in those simplistic terms, how are you doing?

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