A corporate cliché is that the direction of a business is ultimately determined by its customers, that is satisfied customers of course.
In a normal society, the customer is the king and without him, a business existence is severely jeopardized.
But not in Nigeria where businesses draw blood of their customers and make them bleed profusely.
Here, customer satisfaction is no longer a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. It is a mere platitude.
To make matters worse, consumer advocacy is still very low in Nigeria to the extent that consumers do not appropriate their rights in most cases.
The quality of service provisioning appears worse in the telecommunications industry where subscribers are charged for declining and frustrating services and in some cases for services not rendered.
In this industry, the excesses of service providers are unchecked. They abuse market power and infringe on the rights and privileges of the consumers.
Consumers privacies are invaded at will. Poor services; dropped calls; charges for uncompleted calls have persisted and no answers are given.
Come to think of it; great customer service is not rocket science or extreme engineering. It boils down to paying attention to details.
Treating customers’ right doesn’t have to be costly or time-consuming.
Now this is where consumer advocacy must begin to stand beside the consumer and speak out on his behalf to protect and promote his rights and interests.
As Nigerians become increasingly dependent on telecommunications services; a strong advocate is needed to represent the people when telecoms decisions are made.
Today, most Nigerians are vulnerable and open to abuses by services providers because of illiteracy, lack of language skills, or disability.
In combination with low income and lack of access to telephones, Internet or transportation, these barriers deprive many vulnerable consumers of fair treatment.
Like most countries, Nigeria has laws to protect consumers against dangerous or faulty workmanship, deceitful sales practices, and misleading advertising but in practice, they are rarely enforced.
The Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) are agencies responsible for protecting consumers.
But these agencies have done little or nothing in area of consumer education.
They are typical bureaucracies and lack actionable programs that will endear consumers to them.
Even the recent proliferation of independent consumer advocates has served little or no use because their ranks have been broken by services providers with huge financial war chests.
It now left for the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) and indeed the federal government to encourage citizen’s advocacy.
Additionally, consumer protection agencies must be strengthened to provide all the advice and assistance needed by consumers.
More importantly, the federal government must ensure appropriate share of legal aid to support of vulnerable consumers facing consumer protection issues.