Poor customer service, lack of understanding of the role customer appreciation plays in company growth have been identified as bane of Nigeria’s service delivery, and subsequently, major killer sof many promising companies in Nigeria.
Collins Onuegbu, managing director and chief executive of Signal Alliance Ltd, an end-to-end IT firm which specializes in systems integration noted that “poor customer service delivery” was prevalent in Nigeria. He affirmed that effective customer service delivery was a panacea to redundancy.
“Most critically, over the years we have also discovered at Signal Alliance that effective and efficient customer service plays key role in client loyalty and the attendant growth experience,” said Onuegbu.
Proffering what he called the Signal Alliance philosophy of corporate-customer relationship at the end of a week-long ‘Customer Week’ programme in Lagos, Onuegbu said: “Mutual respect is required in effective customer service delivery. You ask yourself; what is our definition of company-customer/partner relation? “
Differing from widely held views that in the business environment, it is all for profit and less concern about partner-end-relationship, Onuegbu, a systems integration specialist noted that companies are said to have performed well when their profits margins could be measured with commensurate growth of their dealing partners.
“When company A reports growth in profit margin, it is expected that its associate partners/customers should have similar experiences. But if company A is growing while its partners/customers in the business ecosystem are experiencing downturn, it definitely will pose a big challenge within the ecosystem,” said Onuegbu.
Concurring, Emeka Osuocha, head of IT operations at BGL Plc, a leading investment banker which offers financial advisory, corporate finance and private banking/asset management services to a network of clients said although customer service may not ring loud in the corporate corridors, it is a key driver of growth.
“There has to be an understanding that the customer pays the bill for the company and should therefore be treated as ‘king’. If we must relate to the old axiom that ‘customer-is-king’ then, they should be so treated and in doing so, the company experiences goodwill and subsequent growth in profit margin,” said Osuocha.
He highlighted that part of the challenge companies’ face in effective customer service delivery was trust. “There has to be trust, but when there is a lack of trust, it would really be very difficult in delivering effective customer service.”
Onuegbu added that “there is a general lack of trust among Nigerians. Nigeria is a society that does not trust. We don’t trust ourselves enough to want to open books to clients/partners to have an understanding of our corporate operations. It could pose business risk. Agreed, in some of the advanced economies you could have more trusting business relationship; but in general terms, not only in Nigeria, but in the emerging economic environment, that trust isn’t available.”