My late mother-in-law taught my wife a lesson about quality with cleaners. She said they will always end up making your place look like where they live unless you make them improve themselves. People who don't live a quality lifestyle can't be expected to provide quality service.
I believe that is the root of poor B2C service in African countries like Nigeria. Many people live very poorly, get very poor service and in return, they also provide shoddy service. Excellence is nowhere to be found in a chain of mediocrity.
For the chain to be broken you start from the bottom. I remember my thread on the planned Michelangelo 5 Star hotel in Warri and why it was scuttled. The people managing said Warri couldn't support the standards they expected. This is true for most service businesses as well.
This incident happened about 20 years ago but Warri still hasn't changed and still can't support something like that. This is true for most parts of Nigeria, even Lagos. Poor service is a reflection of the poor living conditions of support people.
When we were supporting MTN in several countries, the company put our team in guest houses and hotels. When they stopped paying for those facilities, we continued paying for it ourselves even though they deeply cut into our margins. Our people had to remain on top of their game.
When we couldn't afford to provide such high standards because the client couldn't afford to pay, we opted out. I remember an Indian company that wanted us to help them support their African customers and we declined as their offer couldn't even cover our accommodation costs.
When you treat people well by making them live well, they will excel. You can't expect someone who commutes 6 hours daily and has no electricity at home to provide excellent service in Lagos. Functional people need to live functionally. Dysfunction is contagious.
- Culled from a Twitter thread done by Osaretin Victor Asemota.