Customer Service: The end of me

I have always wondered if Nigerians are too lazy to love themselves. We are still at that point where we hold no one accountable at restaurants, airports, offices and shops when they give us attitude. I am not one to let a service provider go scot free if I am paying good money for a product or a service or if it is my right or entitlement.

The other day, I went to a furniture shop and wanted to buy a side stool. The salesman, full grown and possibly married was having an attitude. His responses were rude and he grumbled constantly. I could not even begin to understand what it was that made him such a lemon. I left after I had had enough. When his boss, who is a friend of my family, called, he was making excuses for his staff and therein lay my problem. I was quite surprised when he carried on about how the sales guy had been ill and was just coming to work after a two week sick leave. How is that a skin off my nose? If your staff is ill, let him go home and place another person on his job. This guy interfaces with customers and has no business carrying his personal issues to the shop and accosting me with it. Until employers begin to berate their staff for being rude or disrespectful to customers, we will not grow in Nigeria. We hire our cousins who are no good into a job and we ask customers not to complain and then make excuses for our relations. If our relations are not good front office staff, they should stay in stores or accounts or administration where they don’t have to talk to customers.  The Receptionist is an important position and should not be treated with levity.

At another furniture shop on the same day, I went with my daughter to see if we could get an item for the house. It was a wide, very large showroom. We walked all the way to the end and no one as much as said a word to us. On our return trip to the exit door we asked one of the persons we met at the entrance puttying around if he could not even welcome us, seeing we were customers. He told us in a rather casual voice that it was not his function and continued to play around with the papers in front of him. Then he proceeded to talk to a passer-by staff. Where is Joy, he asked. Tell her to come from the back, there are customers. At this point, we promptly walked out of the shop. 

My cousin who has lived in the United States for nineteen years owns an interior decoration shop in Abuja. Sometimes she is near tears when she is telling me her hiring tales of woe. Human resource is a huge problem in Nigeria, she says and work ethics is non-existent.  I feel sorry for her. It’s hard when you have worked in an environment where work ethics is taken seriously. Here it is anybody’s game how your hiring issues will turn out. I am personally at my wits end when I am hiring personal staff. The little things we were taught when we were young have all gone out of the window e.g. Don’t walk smack in the middle of your principal talking to a guest, be polite to your guests, don’t play games on your phone when you are talking in the workspace, don’t chew gum, be properly dressed at all times, be early to work, never be rude to your guest or your boss… the list is endless.

These days when I demand proper behaviour at work spaces I find that some persons think it’s too much of a task. The other day a shopkeeper in a dress shop was singing a Christian song loudly as she attended to me. I am Christian, but please, will I break into a song at my duty post? It is clearly not on.

For Nigeria to join the comity of Nations doing great things, we need to all stop and think, are we doing our work well or are just doing it because, how for do? Are we paying attention to that job we pleaded so hard to get or are we constantly rude to customers? Your salary comes from the customer’s patronage, think about it. Without that customer, there will be no funds to keep you on a job. From private sector to public service, the customer is important to whatever you do and must be well treated and efficiently attended to.

Efficiency is a standard, it is not rocket science. You either bring it or you don’t. If you spend your entire time spitting into my hair as a hairdresser from continuous chatting and noise, I shall take my hair elsewhere the next time where there is peace and quiet. It is a question of choice.

Eugenia Abu