You can tell from the attached photo that I was passionately addressing something. It was the concept of customer service in this country. The waiter at the restaurant left a menu on my table and disappeared for close to 30 minutes and that started bringing up memories of countless times when I have had to deal with the lowest quality of customer service. Just the day before I had a situation at the dry cleaners; a situation which I am sure most of us have experienced in one form or the other.
I had dropped off my clothes at the dry cleaner’s and on the day they told me my laundry will be done, I showed up but it wasn’t so they asked me to pass by the next day promising to send me an SMS when it was ready. They didn’t send me the SMS. The next day I had other stuff to do. When I had finally made time to go pick up my laundry, I realized I had misplaced my laundry ticket.
I am a trained IT person so I know how databases function. I know you can pull up my information if I only give you my phone number so I knew it shouldn’t be an issue. I showed up and explained to the lady that I had lost my laundry ticket to which her response was “If it was a parifoot ticket, I can never lose it.” - the nerve.
She doesn’t even know me. I have played Parifoot once in my life and it was a fun thing. I just happened to be where people were playing and I had 300frs to spare. I didn’t event pick the teams or nothing. I just gave the money to the kiosk operator and asked him to do whatever and give me the ticket. I later even forgot to check if I won or not. I love football but gone are the days when I will be live streaming matches at the back of the class or skipping class altogether to go watch a football game. I have not sat down to watch an entire game in the last four years so that statement really offended me. I told her to focus on the fact that the day I was scheduled to pick up my laundry was not respected by them and on that day I had my ticket.
Next, she brings out my laundry and I gave her money which she refused to take saying she has no change. Ok. So now I’m supposed to leave my laundry there because she has no change. I told her it was her place to go and find the change and she looked at me with a blank face reiterating that she has no change. Her excuse - she just started her shift and the previous worker had cleared the register - I guess according to company policy. I told her “you people need to do better.” To which she responded “The company or me?” which got me doubly upset. I couldn’t believe I still have to explain to someone like her that at that very point of sale, she is the company. Whatever happens there, I will not go and say so so person did this to me, I will say the company did that to me.
The worst part of it was their pricing strategy in an economy where change is becoming as scarce as truth from Antango’s mouth. The bill was something like 7, 825 frs. I asked them why they always complain of change but price things in such a way that I have to be walking around with 25frs. Her response was I should be happy for the discount which had brought the bill to that price unless I wanted to pay the full price. I mean, the ridiculousness of ça.
The resounding complain in Cameroon is low salaries. Then again when I look at the way some employees behave, I feel sorry for the proprietors of the business. Of course I am never going back to that place and when the business is running slow and salaries cannot be paid, they will complain about having bad bosses who do not pay salaries on time.
The funniest thing is that all that while, there is a solution to the problem. I started giving her ideas. I said why don’t you guys have like a store card where in such situations, I can just transfer my balance to the card and use it next time I come in and her response was I should take my suggestions to the headquarters. Like really? What is your job then?
Her colleague after sitting silently watching the whole episode pulled out a piece of paper which had the names of other people who had to come back later to get their change and gave me to write my name on it. I mean even though this was a tacky solution, the other girl did not even ask me if I would consider it.
Any-Ha!
If you are reading this and you work for someone else. Know that you are a representative of that company. If you don’t know what that means, I suggest you quit your job and contemplate resigning from life altogether. If you work for someone else, know that you have to earn the salary you are demanding.
If you are reading this and you are a company owner, you should think of hiring a consultant to periodically train your employees on the art of customer service.
That said, I think we need a customer service academy in this country because more than 90% of the time, the service is sub par.
- Tino Foy