Be on the look out for the below new by-laws introduced by the Nairobi City Council. If you plan to ignore them, please ensure you carry with you Ksh. 10,000 whenever you are on the streets of Nairobi

1. Pedestrians crossing the roads in Nairobi when traffic light is red – fine is Kshs 10,000/=
2. Motorist moving on when the traffic light is red – Fine is Kshs. 10,000/=
3. Pedestrians crossing the road while talking on their Mobile phones – fine is Kshs 500/=

Please make sure when you board/alight matatus:

1. It is at designated matatu stops OR else you pay a fine of Ksh.10, 000
2. Fasten your seat belts when in the matatus OR else you pay a fine of Ksh. 500

Moving to uplink speeds, South Korea once again led the pack with an average of 18.04Mbps while Ghana tops Africa with an amazing 6.35Mbps and ranked 12th in the world, Rwanda comes in second place again with 2.40Mbps and ranked 25th in the world, Kenya in third place has an average uplink speed of 1.55Mbps and ranked 36th in the world.

Strange how Rwanda tops Kenya with far significantly better speed tests when they buy their broadband service through Kenya. Is internet service cheaper in Rwanda?

NB: In an attempt to keep things as even as possible, Net Index only counted results from nations in which tests were taken from at least 75,000 unique IP addresses.
Based on user test info generated over the past 30 days.

The best description for customer service would be – it is a service offered to customers before, during & after a purchase, and quality control – maintenance of quality of goods & services.

I do not really think Kenyans take these two seriously. Primarily on the third stage of customer service. Once you have purchased an item or are subscribed to a service, you will never get good customer service. I have had this issue with various large “blue chip” companies. If it is not rude customer service, it will be an inefficient customer service that just never gets back to you. And yes all of you know what I am talking about because you have all at some point gone through the same phase of frustration, most probably in the service industry.

I have yet to understand why they fail on customer service, do they not want us to go back to them with our business? Sometime back I walked into a shop to look for something and no one at the shop gave me any attention for almost 15 minutes, this really set me off and I went to the managers office to complain. The manager did nothing about it and asked me to look around for what I was looking for. Now, how would they expect me to ever walk into their business again?

Customer Service really should just be practiced along:-

1. Answer your phone – When someone calls they want to to talk to a real person no some fake recording. Get a decent call forwarding. Or an answering service. Hire staff if you need to and make sure your calls are answered with a smile.
2. Listen to your customers – What is worse than when the person you are complaining to is not really listening to you? Listen to your customer and respond positively.
3. Train your staff to ALWAYS be courteous, helpful & Knowledgeable - Courtesy goes a long way. Get your staff trained on how to handle queries professionally and have them be knowledgeable. Customers do not really like it when they are told ” I do not know, let me get back to you”.
4. Do NOT make promises unless you will keep them – reliability is one of the key elements of customer service, if you say you will have the TV fixed by Friday, have it fixed by Friday. Nothing disappoints a customer more than find out a promise was not fulfilled.
5. Deal with complaints – No one likes complaints, but you are bound to get them at some point. Deal with them, and if you are able to give it an extra bit of attention, you will have a happy customer who will bring their business back to you.

These are just a few of the elements of Customer Service that could have your customers smiling and recommending you to their friends & family.

Many a times you find that a new business has started off really well; great customer service, great products & services or just great restaurant with good food, atmosphere and service. But as time goes things start to fall apart, and quality becomes a thing of the past. Once again all of you out there have definitely at some point or the other experienced this too.

Quality control heavily relies on customer service, this is because if you are listening to your customers and acting upon it, then your products and services are going to meet their expectations. Maintain the quality of your goods and services and continously keep setting the bar for your standards higher and you are always going to have happy customers.

Your views & comments are welcome as always.

I did browse through the blog and noticed only 2 blog posts were done, one in June the other in August. I guess this was more of a test and learning phase for the people who will be blogging from the City Council. Now that you have advertised the site, please put it to work. Its a really good initiative to reach out to the people providing them with information and at the same time taking in their views and comments. It also puts into motion the notion of working hand in hand to progress together.

I have seen Town Clerk Philip Kisia, respond constantly in the dailies watchman section, so I am confident that once the blog is in full use he will get to the public in a much easier and efficient way.Through this blog Mr. Kisia feels the general public will now have the power and opportunity to run the city. The Council should use this site to make people aware of all existing and new by-laws.

The council needs to start embracing technology in many other areas to improve its services to the city of Nairobi and also to cut the losses in makes due to improper transactions taking place in various areas and due to improper records.

Meanwhile kudos to Mr. Kisia for making the move and its the beginning to something good once fully in use.

I would love to see what you guys out there have to say about this and welcome your views and comments.