What does your business need most: more customers or more money?

Let’s not be confused here: one does not necessary mean the other and one eventually means more of the other. 

Wanting more money means trying to get as much as we can, as long as we can, without forgetting to throw a bait (in the form of a promotion) once in a while to make the game seem worthwhile in order to stay in the game: the con job.

Wanting more customers implies taking care of each and every one of them as though he were the first so as to make him understand that you need him more than he needs you. When this is well done, he won’t come back alone next time: the real job.

Comparing this to what actually transpires in real life is akin to looking for resemblance traits between non-identical twins.

For instance, I have been looking for excuses on behalf of telecoms (telecommunication companies) to explain why most of them are still comfortable serving out this “If you want A please press 1” kind of recording when you call their customer care hotline. Me, being under the impression that every situation and every customer is unique and the situations one might find himself in are an infinite combination, I fail to reconcile this practice to the need it is trying to satisfy. An exception noted is that of Airtel Ghana, whose line is picked up at the first tone by a human ready to assist you with your peculiar issue. On the dark side, many will agree with me that MTN Ghana has a long way to go in order to really satisfy their customers as they make absolutely no effort in that regard. What effort is that to make when you rule the competition with about half the market share? What reason do you really need to hire additional customer service representatives in order to reduce the time spent (up to 22 minutes even at night) waiting to be served when a customer calls (don’t pretend not to have enough money to pay them)? The good news is any other operator amongst your five competitors is counting on your flaws and blunders to catch up with you bit by bit, hence the generally good quality of service in the industry within the country.

On the field of providing customers with adequate info and service that will meet their needs so that they spend more of those dimes of theirs which business are after, the reality is so unbelievable that you may be led to believe that each business school makes up its own theory. I dare you to purchase a sim card in Cameroon and make a phone call. You will hit the first wall as there is no introductory booklet to guide you through your first steps. No information whatsoever except the customer service line which you are going to call and be talked to as though you were disturbing or supposed to know the answer to the problem you are exposing. Well you can do that or suffer to part ways with your airtime in the most unexplainable way or find out that you can’t make a call with as much as 200 F CFA (USD0.40) in an economy where the basic monthly salary is 36270 FCFA (USD73.89). I wonder how and whether they conduct any form of market research as they will explain this farfetched mishap by the fact that “you didn’t pick the right pay plan for you”… wait a minute… is it true you can be that much half-insulted in broad daylight as they won’t wonder in the first place where you would have gotten the info on what pay plan you are on and how to change it (remember that there is no introductory booklet). The hard choice between being maltreated on phone or lose your money trying to avoid that frustrating experience.

I am shooting at telecoms because their example is the most tangible. Unfortunately, the bitter truth is “as big or succesfull the company is, as bad its customer service is too”. One or two hundred customers lost will not affect their 9 figures financial results.

This could have been an awesome opportunity for SMEs had they not tried to chase the cash rather than customers. They could have won those 200 customers had they decided to make the client feel satisfied. In a market that counts 90% of SMEs closing down before reaching their 2^nd year of activity, they still manage to cling on dimes instead of securing thousands of FCFA by going the extra mile to satisfy that ONE client they can’t afford to lose.

Hence the question I first asked in the title: What does your business need most: more customers or more money?

Gervais