Chioma Nnani: The Simple things about Customer Services
About a couple of weeks ago something went wrong at my online store. The result was that someone – a customer – was supposed to have been directed to a specific page to access the product they were interested in, after my invoicing system had collected their details.
I have another system in place that ensures I automatically receive certain emails, meaning that if a customer doesn't receive something, I actually know something has gone wrong before they do. As I did, in this case.
Fortunately, the customer left their phone number and emails so I was able to contact them. I asked them to give me 24 hours to sort out the glitch, did so, apologised profusely, then had a discount voucher prepared for them. They said they were surprised.
I was more surprised at the antics of the staff at the hotel where I had been booked to spend the weekend (15 – 18 April, 2016) for a scriptwriting conference. It was ridiculously awful.
To begin with, they didn't realise that the prices on their own website were very different from what they were sporting at their front desk. Ventilation was poor. Electricity supply was an issue – they know the monumental joke that is NEPA (or is it PHCN? I cannot keep up with the different names that Nigeria's electricity supply board go by whenever the fancy takes them); yet the hotel couldn't be bothered to ensure they had an alternative source of electricity. There was no hot water; they knew this before we checked in. But when even the supply of the cold water dried up right in the middle of a shower that one of us was having on Saturday morning, the entire team decided that we had had enough of the joke that hadn't even been funny to begin with.
We relocated to a different hotel – where we were actually treated like human beings, and we were able to work.
The thing I find really ironic is that the first hotel (for whom I've left the kind of review they deserve on my blog, along with their name) cannot even be seen from the express road (or motorway).They offered a half-hearted attempt at an apology and didn't offer to refund any part of the money we had paid. I would have thought that they would be bending over backwards to drive traffic, positive reviews and referrals to their business – especially as it's not a place one just happens to stumble upon.
These are the kinds of people who will claim tomorrow that “the devil is after my business”.
Or that “there is an ancestral curse on my family that prevents us from doing well in business; we are always rising and falling in business”.
I promise these are things I have heard from many jokers who think they are entrepreneurs.
There are times that I worry for Nigeria.
I really do.
Chioma Nnani is an award-winning author, who also contributes to business, lifestyle and literary publications. One of Africa's most fearless storytellers, she is a two-time UK BEFFTA (Black Entertainment Film Fashion Television and Arts) Award nominee and a DIVAS OF COLOUR 2016 finalist, who lives in Abuja, runs THE FEARLESS STORYTELLER HOUSE EMPORIUM LTD, can be reached on @ChiomaNnani and blogs at www.fearlessstoryteller.com
