FROM THE HEART OF A YOUNG NIGERIAN MOTHER - Whose Life is it Anyway?

The other day, my daughter was playing with her father’s stethoscope. I was thinking how cute it was, you know, how she wants to be a doctor just like her daddy. My husband, on the other hand, was looking on with horror.

I have heard him often bemoan that the medical profession in Nigeria is not what it used to be. Nowadays, getting a well paying job in clinical medicine as a young doctor is next to impossible. He says the only young doctors doing well are those who have left pure medicine for a career in paramedical fields like public health or work with NGOs. Those prospering in clinical medicine are the consultants, his ‘senior colleagues’ in the medical profession; and even they are barely earning what an entry level salary earner in oil companies get. Consequently, he would not encourage any child of his to study medicine. He wanted her to make ‘real’ money while she was young enough to enjoy it!

But is it really his decision?

My heart goes out to parents. Being one myself, I know the many decisions we need to make to ensure that our children have the best chance at success in life and how easily, even with the best of intentions, those decisions can backfire on us. Which schools should they go to? Who can we allow them to associate with? What further skills can we encourage them to acquire?

It’s so easy to judge parents when their children are struggling with one thing or the other as a result of some decision that the parents made. However, there is a fine line between making decisions that we think are best for our children and making decisions that are best for them.

Now, I know that my husband would be the last person to stand in the way of our child, if she really wanted to study medicine and had worked hard for the opportunity, but how many parents, in a bid to promote their children’s success, have forced their children into doing what they want?

When I was younger, it was the ‘in’ thing to study Medicine, Law or Engineering. Anything else was simply out of the question. You were pushed to the Science class because that was where the ‘smart’ kids went and if per chance, you were more Arts inclined, Law was the only acceptable alternative. This meant that the universities were inundated with candidates for these three major courses and those who were not admitted for them, did their level best to change after their first year.

Most people who were unable to change found a way to be happy with what they had. Others retook JAMB, willingly or forced by their parents to reapply for the coveted course. I have a friend who was admitted for Mass Communication but was forced to leave in her third year when her father threatened to withdraw financial support unless she read Law. She was eventually admitted for Law but lost three years and struggled all the way through school.

Another friend of mine who, by popular vote, was brilliant in the Sciences, was categorically told by his father that he had to read Law because he wanted all the children to be lawyers like both the parents were. This had already been achieved with the two older siblings. My friend defied his father, who refused to pay for his university education, graduated with a first class in Engineering and presently runs a successful software development company.

I could tell you of two brilliant young men, who had nothing in common but parents with the same idea of wanting their children to be doctors. One nearly committed suicide after being chucked out of Med School because he failed the same medical exam twice. He eventually changed to another course where he thrived. The other, an exceptional artist with a flair for graphics, stuck it out in Medicine though he repeated exams several times before graduating.

There are hundreds of such stories, just as there are also stories of children who allowed themselves to be guided by their parents and attribute their success to listening to them.

But how far is too far?

I agree that it is the responsibility of a parent to do all they can for their children but we must examine our motives. In my day, many a parent enjoyed the prospect of being able to be known as the parent of a budding doctor, or lawyer or engineer; others saw their children as their ticket out of a life of continuous lack and hardship; still more thought they were doing their child a disservice if they didn’t push them to ‘be the best’.

But what is the best?

The best is when your child finds what they are good at and succeeds in it. The world calls people like 2Face and D-Banj who are not doctors or lawyers successful because they have money; but I tell you that Mother Theresa who was also not a doctor or lawyer, was a roaring success because her work has outlived her.

There is enough room in the sky for every star, no matter how little they shine. If every star shone as brightly as the North Star, then sailors would lack direction. After all, it is the combination of all the stars that make the sky as beautiful as it is.

The injunction is to train up the child in the way that he should go so that when he is old, he does not depart from it. Let your children find their own way, just like you did. Your job is to guide them aright, be their cheering section when they do well and their voice of encouragement when they struggle.

That way, both your dreams will be fulfilled – a successful child and a proud parent.

SERVICEWISE - Much Ado about the Customer

‘The customer is always right’, ‘The customer is king’ and other such venerations of that entity called ‘the customer’ have been around for years. Well, we know from experience that the customer is most certainly not always right, in fact he can not only be wrong but downright ‘stupid’ at times; and his monarchy is not only questionable but exists only in specific situations and only under certain circumstances (remember, the customer is not always right so it makes sense that he is only king when he is).

So why still all the fuss about the customer?

Why is the Customer Important?

Every need is born of a demand. It might not be wise to start a business just because you can or want to without taking the resources that will help make your business a success into consideration. You need answers to the following questions:

·         Who needs the product or service? (People)

·         Where are they located? (Place)

·         How much are they willing to pay for the product or service? (Price)

·         What are their preferences in terms of functionality? (Product or Service)

·         How do I let them know what I’m offering? (Promotion)

·         Who can I get to help me? (People)

·     How do I get things to work in the most effective manner to achieve my objectives? (Process/Procedures)

So you need people to buy your product or service, people to sell it and people to promote it. Though these people can be grouped into end users, distributors and employees and seem somewhat disconnected, they are important components in the life cycle of a thriving business. This means the way you treat them is vital.

Who is the Customer?

The stereotype definition of a customer is someone who buys a product or service that is available in order to satisfy a need. Before, when products were not performing as predicted, companies simply made a ‘better’ product or slashed prices. Nowadays, business owners are realizing that it’s not only what you sell but how you sell that makes a difference. It therefore follows that you have to think not only about the end user of your product but also of the people that help you get the product or service to them. They are also your customers.

Types of Customers

The world of customer service recognizes three types of customers:

External Customer: They are the ones usually conjured up in the mind when one thinks about a customer. They are the ones who walk into a store to make a purchase that would satisfy his need. The objective of exceptional customer service here is customer loyalty or retention and positive word-of-mouth advertising.

Intermediate Customer: They are less readily acknowledged. They are the ‘middle men’; the distributors or vendors that aid a business in getting its product to the end user. Since you need their goodwill in order for them to move and recommend your product, they are customers as well. They form part of your delivery systems. You want to serve them right also in order to achieve positive word-of-mouth advertising.

Internal Customer: These are your colleagues or co-workers, your human resources. They are potentially overlooked as you presume that because you work with them daily in the same organization, you are working towards the same goals. But picture a scenario where a co-worker is rude, unhelpful to a customer, doesn’t work with you to ensure your customers get the best service you can offer and is in essence not exhibiting the organizational culture. This will handicap your business so you also need to know how to deal with them. Here, you’re gunning for creating job satisfaction and positive, healthy attitudes to work. This cannot help but influence how customers are treated.

In a nutshell, the customer is everyone you interact with who can, in one way or the other, contribute positively to the growth and success of your business.

So if you knew that someone could help increase your profits, wouldn’t you overlook a lot of their ‘stupid’ faults (within reason), look for creative ways to resolve their problems so that they benefit the both of you, cause them to leave your business feeling like ‘kings’ and come back, bringing their friends?

That, my friends, is the definition of customer service.

TEENSPEAKS - Affairs of the Teenage Heart

Every parent can testify that from the minute they look into the precious little face of their new baby daughter, they begin to entertain fears for her virtue. It doesn’t matter that she has just been born and no one but God can really say how she is going to turn out; it doesn’t matter that her mother was once a little girl herself and turned out alright in the end (if she does say so herself!) or that her father is a member of the dreaded sex that he believes exists for the sole purpose of seeing to the ruination of his girl-child.

She must be protected, barred from the world of men, set in the highest tower of the farthest castle in the deepest ocean in the farthest corner of the earth until she dies either from age or sheer boredom- at least, she would have died safe!

Okay, I exaggerate. You will agree with me, though, that some parents of teenage girls kind of go ballistic when they discover that boys have started to find their daughters attractive. They get hernias whenever they see their daughters speaking with a guy; hyperventilate when their young lady is talking with some guy on the phone and has the effrontery to look happy while doing it; and go into cardiac arrest when they discover that their sixteen-year old has a (saints preserve us!!!) boyfriend!

I am privileged to work with teenagers on a regular basis and it hurts me to observe how fears about relationships not only fuel rebellion, but alienate the teens from their parents. Girls have been called promiscuous or worse, been physically assaulted or humiliated in front of their siblings and relatives, given irrational curfews and accused of all sorts of things just to scare them into submission. This may put the parent’s heart at uneasy rest, but it forces the teen to seek alternative outlets for their emotions like pornography, masturbation and premature sex.

Listen, I agree that this is not America. This is Nigeria, where social relations between teenagers of the opposite sex, is not viewed with as much license. It is not that American teenage rituals are necessarily harmful; it’s not just in our culture to indulge practices such as ‘going on dates’ and ‘prom night’. People, we need to understand that though we may disapprove of the manner in which those teens express their attraction for each other, we cannot ignore the fact that our teens have those feelings too and they need to be dealt with.

The kind of exposure teens of nowadays have doesn’t make things any easier. They watch TV, go on the internet and hear what other teens’ parents allow. Everything they see is encouraging them to break out, take control, and make their own decisions. But more than these, they can’t deny that their heats beat just that little bit faster when they see that special boy (or girl, for the boys), or that when they are with them, everything seems better and they don’t want the time to end.

Because teenagers are teenagers, their feelings per time are erratic so a parent cannot entirely be blamed for discountenancing some of their more passionate affirmations of ‘forever after’ feelings for so and so. A wise parent, however, would get close to their teenager and help her channel those feelings positively and productively. A paranoid parent would rather have their child deny the existence of those feelings and command her to face her studies, asserting that if she had been doing the latter in the first place, they would not have committed valuable time to thinking about boys (or girls, in the case of the boys).

We need to stop burying our heads in the sand, hoping that if we close our eyes, the teenage years, and their attendant complexities would go away. Every teenager is different and needs to be treated thusly. We need to take time to acquaint ourselves with their ways and their world (after all, how can we fight an enemy that we do not know or understand?), and more importantly, acquaint ourselves with our teens.

There is a lot of information out there in books and over the internet that can equip us with the skills we need to chart the choppy waters of the teen years. But having done all to stand, we need to arm ourselves with the Word of God and with prayer.

We need all the help we can get!

SERVICEWISE - How do You solve a problem like a Difficult Customer?

Steven Slater, a flight attendant with Jet Blue, an American airline, lived the dream of customer service professionals everywhere when he consigned a disruptive passenger to the nether regions, grabbed two cans of beer and bailed from an aircraft at JFK Airport. According to him, the passenger cursed at him, struck him with some luggage, though not intentionally, and refused to apologize. Apparently, twenty years of dealing with passengers of that ilk was more than Mr. Slater could bear.

It’s one thing to have to deal with the self righteous indignation of an irate customer who has a case. It’s quite another when the customer is clearly in the wrong, but still expects to get away with his infraction, simply because he is the customer and after all, the customer is always right; and more often than not, for reasons, whether good or unfair (these are highly subjective), our superiors bless his right to do so.

So, what do we do? In Steven Slater’s case, challenging the customer was thoroughly justified. Getting out of an airplane seat before being cleared, as this passenger did (let’s call him Mr. X), put not only him but others in danger as 80% of aircraft accidents typically occur during takeoff and landing. Slater certainly did not deserve the abuse he received for doing his job.

But he could have handled the situation differently.

Diffusing Customer Aggression

Sometimes, when a customer acts or reacts aggressively, there is usually some baggage, emotional or otherwise, attached to it. As a customer service professional, the onus is on you to draw on your training to identify the problem and deal with it.

1. 1)     First, understand that you are not the problem. Your company might be; something else might be. You just happen to be there. Unless there had been a prior encounter, there is no reason why the customer would take things out on you personally.
2. 2)     Do not return aggression. Two wrongs do not make a right.
3. 3)     Take control of the situation right from the start. It’s not about you or how you feel. Prioritize. In Mr. Slater’s case, priority was getting Mr. X seated so as not to endanger anyone else. Since it was a safety issue, he could have got his superior or even the captain involved which could have led to Mr. X being escorted off the aircraft if necessary. Since most passengers wouldn’t want that, it’s more likely than not that Mr. X would have complied.
4. 4)     Bring the customer to a neutral state, so you can focus on the issue at hand. A neutral state is a state of mind where two people can discuss resolving an issue without concentrating on what caused it.
5. 5)     Listen. This is your primary way of getting information from your customer.
6. 6)     Empathize. Put yourself in their shoes. You are a customer to somebody.
7. 7)     Admit mistakes when you are clearly wrong.
8. 8)     Accept responsibility.
9. 9)     Take immediate action to resolve the problem.
10. 10)  Know that a win-win situation is possible. Don’t lose the war before fighting the battle. Don’t make it a ‘them or me’ situation. Difficult customers are here to stay so you’ve got to decide, ‘well, so am I!’

Going head to head with a difficult customer produces no winners. You may prove your point, but you lose a customer and everyone else the customer could have brought to your business.

So how do you solve a problem like a difficult customer? You deal with him.

Because in the ‘service-verse’, the customer may be nice, nondescript or nestling on your last nerve but the customer is the customer and he is always right.

FROM THE HEART OF A YOUNG NIGERIAN MOTHER - They're looking at You, Mum and Dad

I remember the first time my two-year-old daughter wore her first bra.

I watched her little face, screwed up in concentration, as she pushed the first arm, then the other into the straps, and fitted the cups over her chest.

She then turned to me with a look of triumph and a huge smile. It didn’t matter to her that she was making a big deal over something as uneventful to me as putting on a bra; she had done it all by herself. It mattered even less that she was wearing my bra and it was, well let’s just say, definitely not her size!

Yes, she was imitating the ritual she had seen me repeat every day since she was old enough to understand what it was, even if she did not yet understand why I did it. As she doesn’t understand what make up is, or why I use it; that the high heels I wear , though alright for me just swallow up her small feet and that handbags sometimes do really need to be as big as she is.

My tiny tot’s antics remind me that whether I am conscious of it or not, I am her compass for all that it means to be a female. It started right from when she realized that I kind of look like her and it will end the day that I go on to glory.

Being a reference point to her of all things feminine and adult becomes a big responsibility for me. It makes me question how I comport myself, how I dress, how I handle conflict (especially with her father), whose example I follow, how I treat people, how I make decisions, how I handle money and a myriad other things.

Do I do the things that I ask her to do or do I just say them? Do I teach her to confront issues or ask her to tell Mrs. So and so that I’m not at home while I hide away in my room? Do I tell her to respect all people and then stop her from playing with Mama Comfort’s daughter because her mother owns the ‘buka’ down the street without a really good reason? Do I let her do what she jolly well wants and then take her to task when she makes a potentially embarrassing bad decision? Am I honest with her or do I tell her a little ‘white lies’ to make her aim higher like how I always used to come first when I was in school?

It is very sobering for me to realize that whatever my child becomes in life, starts from what she learnt at her mother’s knees as what I became started from what I learnt at mine’s. It makes me want to constantly put a magnifying glass on all that I do and ask myself what kind of an impact it will have on her.

I’m grateful to my parents for how I turned out in life. I would love for my children to be able to say the same.