There was an odious smell in the air last week. No matter where one went there was no escaping it. It was in most offices one visited, every where on social media; it even infiltrated our email boxes.
It was the slightly disgusting odour of the ‘customer service week’.
All around the nation, corporate organisations thought it wise to dress up their staff in football jerseys, some of the national team, some of foreign football clubs. Some even went the further distance of engaging in some kick about in their office premises.
And don’t even get me started on those who were participating cultural dances in their banking halls. Sheesh!!!
Somehow this was supposed to be a form of celebration of their customers. Somehow, someone thought of this idea, forwarded it to his or her superiors and it was approved as something for grown ups to engage in. Someone well-paid and seen to be qualified in matters like that.
And no one thought to stop and think about how exactly all these exercises are supposed to benefit their customers. How precisely an average customer should care whether or not a bank teller or a telecoms customer service person is dressed in casual wear.
Nigerian companies are notorious for their shitty customer service, and the larger the company, perhaps the shittier.
From the bank that requires you to download a form, fill it in by hand, then upload and send it back; to the customer service representative who insists that it is impossible to remove one’s number from their customer database months after one stopped working for the company for whom they were contracted for.
I know it sounds like I am bitching a lot about banks and telecom companies but they are the worst of the very worst. The real scum of the earth.
It might feel like this ‘customer service week’ malady is a recent phenomenon but it is not. In this writer’s former life and about a decade ago, the advertising agency he was working with was briefed to work on a ‘customer service week’ campaign.
The team working on this brief struggled on this particular campaign more than most, mainly because they couldn’t for their life and talent imagine how embellishing t-shirts and mouse pads with smiley faces was supposed to assure customers that customer services are being improved upon.
And isn’t that supposed to be the idea behind having a ‘customer service week’, if you ever insist on having one. A public relations exercise to assure your customers that you recognise you and your company’s shortcomings even as you exhibit concrete steps towards improving their customer service experiences.
And not to play around with football jerseys and casual attires like your company’s customer service hasn’t gone to the dogs already.
Shame on you if you willingly participated in last week’s shenanigans and posed and smiled for pictures.
And a more heftier shame for you if you hold some position of authority in such a company and did nothing to stop such childish play. May your company go out of business soon.