Redeeming Yourself After A Bad Customer Experience: The Nakumatt Case
A few years back I wrote this post after buying cake from Nakumatt which I discovered to be stale on getting home. Upon returning the cake on the same day, I was treated with suspicion and I swore to never buy cake there again. I compared Nakumatt with Amazon, which treated me with absolute trust, despite the fact that I am based in this continent which is home to the famous Nigerian scams, and though a book lover, I am definitely not one of their bigger customers. I wished that more Kenyan companies would learn to be better to their clients.
Well, the other day I received a call from Ennsvalley Bakers, the company that runs the bakery inside Nakumatt Mega. The call may have come years late because I am no longer enthusiastic about cake in general, but Stella, the lady in charge of quality control apologized profusely for my unpleasant experience. She asked whether I have bought cake there since, and I assured her that I kept my promise to never buy cake from them, though I loved their bread. My favourite are the coconut bread and multi-grained types. She informed me that they had upped their quality control processes and would offer me 1kg black forest cake as retribution, and for me to sample.
Frankly my first instinct was to decline and tell her that I would buy a slice to verify. Then I thought to myself,” why not give the company a chance to redeem itself?” About two weeks ago I picked the fresh, moist black forest cake from Nakumatt Mega, and though the apology came over 5 years later, I felt this company has learned a thing or two about customer service.
There are a couple of lessons to be learnt here by Kenyan companies:
First, it is not enough to apologize for a bad product or service. Have you ever been served bad food at a restaurant, have a manager profusely apologize after your complaint only to hand you the bill shortly after? This has happened to me on many occasions even when I didn’t eat much of the food, and it felt like I was being robbed by being asked to pay full price for it. Here is a business that’s charging me full price for less than what they sold me. That is actually robbery. Our businesses need to learn that sometimes, the loss they might incur in waiving that charge, or offering a better alternative will earn them more revenue, or save them potential embarrassment like this restaurant is currently going through. Are there customers that will try take advantage of this? Yes, but trust me these are the minority. And even if you think a customer is taking advantage, do not get defensive as it does not work in your favour.
Secondly, it is important for the organization to empower the people on the shop floor to resolve customer issues. An issue shouldn’t need to reach top management for it to be resolved, because you lose many customers that do not have the clout to talk to the top managers. When your junior staff are empowered to please the customers, it will show in the numbers. You will do well as a business.
Finally and most importantly, while resolution and retribution are important, the most important thing is for the business to learn from its mistakes. Ennsvalley assured me that they no longer have stale cake on their shelves, all is fresh. I certainly hope that is true, because it shows they have improved as a business. In this social media age it is easy to appease the one person who has posted about your company online, and continue shortchanging all your other clients. I remember complaining about a certain restaurant online, after which I received several calls from top management and reassurance that they would do better, only to realize the subsequent times I have gone there, nothing has changed, and the customer complaints are even worse. Do not be that company that only seeks to save face on Twitter but continues with the same bad habits. Learn from your mistakes.
So that is a pleasant ending to my rather stale cake complaint. As we mature economically, I hope more businesses will learn to treat their customers better.
Do you have outstanding customer service stories that you would like to share? To mark Customer Service week, let us appreciate the businesses that have gotten customer service right.
