Its now been 6 months since Kenya finally went digital, and in these six months all I have seen is a gimmick – “Doubled your bandwidth for free”.

Dear ISP,

We are the customer! We are not stupid.

I have noted that there are only four major player in the industry at the moment – KDN, Access Kenya, Orange & Safaricom. They all provide the end user with internet access in one way or the other.

My main stress has been internet access for home users & SOHO’s

Safaricom - Safaricom’s main strength in the data market has without a doubt been the 3g modems that they have been selling for as little as 2000shs ($27). Almost everyone has a Safaricom line, and Safaricom banked in on this and started selling the 3g modems at a throw away price. They have provided bundles that are soft on everyone’s pocket in terms of cost of bundle but not usage. The more the use the more you pay. That is a major disadvantage as safaricom have really fast bandwidth and you may get carried away with your usage.

3g coverage is scattered and inconsistent. Safaricom customer support is extremely difficult to get through to.

Access Kenya – Access Kenya had always set their sights on corporate clients, but when the fiber was close to completion they decided to move into the home user market with the introduction of access @home. @home is a WiMax based connection that has a lot of connectivity issues once the base station you are connected to starts getting saturated. Why am I telling you this? Because Access Kenya are known to saturate their base stations. At 6000shs +VAT ($80) for 512kbp/128kbps  and an additional cost of equipment & installation at 15000shs +VAT ($200), the average home user would never go for this because its too steep.

Access Kenya will really need to up the ante if they want to get into the home market big time. They may have broken their customer targets 2 months earlier, but the home users that are connected to their service are an extreme minority.

Access Kenya @home support team is much better than that of the corporate team and beat any of their competition hands down at providing good support.

KDN – KDN have for long been corporate solution providers, providing service through WiMax. They came up with the much scanty butterfly product for individuals on the move. KDN are still focused to providing corporate solutions and not really in a hurry to move into the home market.

KDN support is a major fail and their recent two awards are nothing compared to their image. KDN really need to review their customer support & sales team and how they work.

Orange Kenya – When Orange was Telkom Kenya, they had been the BIG boys solely because they were the monopoly. That is in the past now, and Telkom Kenya is now Orange Kenya and they are trying to come back into the market with a bang. Orange are finally connected to TEAMS Fiber and speeds are blazing. Orange Kenya have the real vision towards broadband roll out to home users via old copper cables and the use of a livebox with inbuilt Wi-Fi. At 4000shs ($54) for 512kbps/256kbps and additional cost of 3500shs ($47) for the livebox, Orange Kenya have almost got it right, they need to reduce the costs further and increase the bandwidth. Most of us still have the traditional phone lines and would not mind moving onto the service

Orange Kenya have re-vamped their Customer support who at least answer their phones now, but who really need to be taught a lot more on their products. Technical team has also been really improved and downtimes are a thing of the past.

New Players

Tangerine Broadband – With what they have been advertising as – for as little as 649shs ($8), they have a sales team that do not know what they have for sale. Not much information means they have nothing to sell.

Zuku – Double play package providers, providing TV & broadband from wananchi online. At 4500shs ($60) and additional setup cost of 3000shs ($40) with free equipment, Zuku may just have the chance to sneak in front of the competition. What really puts Zuku off is the poor sales follow up and the poor support. Complaints of extremely slow speeds (6kbps-15kbps) are also plenty.

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.