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.

FROM THE HEART OF A YOUNG NIGERIAN MOTHER - The Culture Conflict

We’ve all been there. As parents, we remember our sense of pride and accomplishment when our child said his first word; as if it was something we did that made it happen. It not only marked for us a milestone in his development, but finally, we would be able to make sense of something he is saying. It heralded the end of our frustration of having to guess and reduced the number of trials and errors.

If we think about it, though, ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’ from our little angel’s lips inspires infinitely more positive feelings than ‘mama’ or ‘baba’, unless we don’ speak English anyway and so we really don’t care.

These days I find my contemporaries faced with the same conflict. Ever wondered how your parents did it so that you not only spoke English fluently but your mother tongue as well? I certainly never gave it much thought…, until I became a mother myself and found myself asking my husband how we expected our children to learn Yoruba (our mother tongue) if we and everyone around them (even their grandparents who we rely upon to anchor us to our traditions) speak only English to them.

‘Why does it matter?’ you may ask. In today’s Nigeria, it’s not likely to make that much of a difference outside the home, particularly since our country is distinguished by its ethnic diversity and the only way we can understand what each other is saying is by speaking English (or pidgin English, which is definitely not anyone’s mother tongue, though some people may beg to differ!)

Consider for a moment that if our ethnicity is so important to us, our language is a big part of it. If then the succeeding generations have Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, or any of our many other indigenous languages deleted from their education and vocabulary, aren’t we becoming complicit in erasing a vital part of our identity?

Yes, we give our children foreign names. We all have our reasons for that, and it is a good way to celebrate the good in other cultures; and yes, some of our ‘country people’ beyond our shores have not done much to make us proud of our nationality. It doesn’t change the fact that we have a responsibility to not only our forebears, but to that which puts us on the map of the world.

Our children cannot learn it in school from their Yoruba or Igbo teachers who only expose them to the language twice a week. It comes down to us, mummy, daddy, grandpa, grandma and our ethnic community. Learning about where they are from, like charity, can only begin at home.