Thin lines and tight margins!

October 29, 2013October 29, 2013 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Branding Zimbabwe, bulawayo, consumer expectations, customer relationship management, Hilter, mutli channel organisations, Smart communications, Strategy, ZimbabweLeave a comment

It’s been a while since I wrote a piece for the blog and a lot has happened, frustrations, delight and sheer awe at the goings on in my day to day existence. I am also getting normalised or should that re-naturalised, so I am a little more patient and sometimes accepting to the stuff that drove me crazy in my first few weeks.

I attended a child protection course and a university presentation in the last couple weeks ago both of which brief for moment it gave me a glimpse of what learning and training might be like in the Zimbabwean context. Without painting everyone with the same ugly brush, I would like to say that my experience with the learning environment has left me both shocked and sad at the state of environment in which the country is producing its workforce. On one hand the child protection trainer was well informed of his craft, policies and what not but he couldn’t teach it, we spent 2 hours listening and left without really being equipped with the “what is child abuse and what to do in the event of witnessing child abuse”. He was uncoordinated and lacked a road map of where the training started, what he needed to teach and where it ended.

Then, there was an in event at a local university and for the uninformed, Zimbabwe now has 16 universities! What I took out of the event is that in this part of the world observing protocol is everything even if it means repeating the honoured guests list 5 times at one event! It was tedious and boring after 2 rounds but to seat through 5 recitals of the list was too much especially for an event that was only two and half hours long. But, I learned something, if you don’t want to repeat honoured guest list in its entirety all you say is “All protocols observed”, so why we sat through the other stuff I don’t know. It’s not as if any new honoured guests were added to the list! But beyond that, the event again lacked simple preparedness, coordination and a sense of occasion, which was the point of it all.

I accept that I am quite sheltered in terms of experiencing the daily realities of living on meagre wages and general hardships that the common man and woman here go through but I had a “this is Africa moment” last week. I decided to explore the other side of the city on foot and encountered a market, now before you judge me let me finish! I have been to markets in other parts of Africa and in that hustle and bustle of the people’s market there is an experience that is uniquely Africa. PriceS of veggies goes from $1-3.00 in the shop to 30c – 70c and there are 10 to 15 traders seating next to each other selling exactly the same things and the same price. The products are primarily vegetables, clothes, cheap knock offs of sports shoes and even cheaper knock offs of leading electronics brands. But it was the atmosphere and the fading hope on the traders faces as I walked past each stall that stuck with me. My business brain quickly worked out that prices were so low because of hyper competition but could textbook strategy work here? What else would they traders do? The margins maybe as little as nothing but at least they have somewhere to go in the morning.

Today I visited a boarding school that benefits from my NGO’s support and found something that I remembered from the child protection training, Girls should not be beaten as punishment as school! I am sure there are many girls reading this who will remember being beaten and I saw it happening today! The irony of it all was that I was being shown around by a staff member who attended the child protection training I mentioned earlier and he didn’t notice it! The teacher was smacking the girls on their cheeks! Face cheeks! And in another corner were two boys who were missing lunch because their shoes had no laces! Which made me think, where does punishment and abuse become blurred lines? The lines are very thin….

Maybe I am being naive!

August 19, 2013 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Branding Zimbabwe, consumer expectations, consumers, customer relationship management, customer service, customers, Great Zimbabwe, Harare, iphone5, marketing, Smart communications, smartphone, Zimbabwe3 Comments

Over the last two weeks I have encountered different types of services, private and public and on all occasions I have been left wondering, “what is the reason behind this never ending relationship between customer service and the ball point pen in Zimbabwe?”. In almost all instances there is always a computer at every service desk! Sometimes both the pen and the computer are used to record the same event, meaning I have to wait twice as long to be served without any real improvement to my experience of that service.

Am I expecting too much, does anyone else not see that, for time and age that we are living in at this very moment, we are not equipped to be effective and efficient? One colleague reminded me that my problem is I have diaspora expectations, I should accept that things are different here but what is the real difficult in producing customer service provisions that exceed current levels? Surely it is not because investing in information technology is expensive, the technology is already there!. Could it be a lack of training or is it management myopia holding back the development of better service provision quality?

Here are two examples of why I am complaining, at my previous hotel, I had some dirty laundry washed, my details and the list of items to be washed where added onto my room information on the hotel’s computer system, later as I came to collect laundry I was asked to pay cash, even though this was midway through my stay, I produced the money to pay. Payment details were added onto my room information and a receipt book with ball point pen attached was produced to duplicate the very same information for which I was given a copy but only after a 20 minute wait. Upon checking out I was given a 4 page folio copy printed by the system detailing every single thing I had done that week including the laundry business! why do I need it again or why did I have to wait for all that 20 minutes in the first instance when I could have just got the information on checking out?!

The same goes to my mobile phone provider who made me wait in three queues to be saved at 3 desks in order to change my micro sim to a nano sim! on all three occasions I was asked to repeat the same information for which three different colour hand written receipts were produced while the information was simultaneously added onto the information technology system! After 45 minutes waiting for this elaborate process to be completed I got to the payment station and I was told the cashier didn’t have change for $20 so now I had to find that in order to pay! Life is way too short for this BS!

But all is not lost, as I discovered at Harare Airport where I arrived to check in for my flight to Bulawayo, my first with the airline for 14 years!, with nothing but an emailed e-ticket on my iphone. You can forgive the nervous ball of anxiety in my stomach as I got to the check-in desk but the helpful gentleman checked me in with a smile and without asking any further question or even an ID!

Isn’t it a scary world when anything related to AirZim is an example of best practise! Ahh, its supplier of handling services at the airport should get the applause instead, well done to the NHS for not using a ball point pen! (No!, it stands for National Handling Services, not that other NHS!). As for AirZim, we left on time, well 20 minutes late is no reason to complain when the national airline is the service provider on any trip!

I am sure some will have a counter point and an explantion or rationale for all my complaints, maybe I am just being naive but, come on!

Branding in a recovering economy

October 16, 2012October 16, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Branding Zimbabwe, consumer expectations, customer relationship management, customer service, customers, Leadership, logo, marketing, price, product benefits, risk, Strategy, value proposition1 Comment

The issue of branding in all economies always draws interesting opinions especially bacause it costs money to develop and maintain branding in a postion that gives organisations competitiveness in their markets. The challenges in a recovering economy for brands and branding will inevitably emanate from the same issue of resources epscially money. The allocation of capital into developing and maintaining brands pales into the background as organisations struggle to survive within a challenging environment. The inspiration for this article is investigating how organisations accomodate branding as business strategy component during difficult times.

The interesting part of this assessment is how do organisations juggle the allocation of resources in the process of sustaining the organisations so that it contunes to be functional but also maintains a presence on the market through marketing and brand management activites that garner consumer attention but more importantly sales!

Marketing as a practise is often percieved as a investment heavy function that suffers first during spending cuts and downsizing but it is my opinion that reduction of spending in revenue generation activities is perhaps the wring strategic move to make. Alternatively I would suggest that business leaders consider re-orientating their business models into demand driven business that invest in lead generation and higher conversion of enquiries into sales. This strategy can only be driven by strong market presence and brand recognition in target markets. The marketing mix is this case becomes the driver of lead generation and enquiry conversion through configuring all elements so that they give marketers the best opportunity to present the product to the market.

Overall I feel there is too much unneccessary caution in strategic planning when it comes to responding to external pressures on sales and operations of businesses which compounds the pressure as business activity shrinks from cuts in production, workforce, marketing and innovation for brand development. There needs to be greater bullishness in finding alternatives in a process that is led by creative and innovative approaches to strengthening brands espeically long established brands that have emotional real estate in the market.

Branding represents much more that the logo of an organisations it communicates the value an organisation brings to its customers, its ethos on customer service, the quality of its products and the company’s position in the minds of its customers all encapsulated in a logo, font and colour. So look around and look at the brands you use and ask yourself if you see all those qualities in their logos, font and colour?

Defining customers service in Africa; route towards improvement in customer service

October 7, 2012November 17, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!advertising, africa, Branding Zimbabwe, consumer expectations, consumers, customer relationship management, customer service, customers, Leadership, marketable, marketing, potential, private sector, public sector, Strategy, trainingLeave a comment

Being a regular visitor to Africa in the last 11 months I have experienced varying degrees of customer service quality and concluded that getting “good” quality customer service is still a far fetched dream in almost all service encounters.

A few other travelling colleagues have been discussing how we could drive Africa towards universal good customers service as some research has identified Africa as a future destination for western companies looking to outsource customer service functions to African countries. There are several implications to finding a solution to customer service delivery in Africa, first of which is creating better experiences for customers and improving customer retention. Secondly if Africa is to realise the potential expressed in the above research referred then we need to have a marketable product by ensuring that every customer encounter with service delivery is positive, because you never know who your next customer might be.

It is my opinion that the process of improving African customer service provision must start with developing a clear understanding of how customer service is perceived in the Africa context. The lack of resources, imbalance between demand and supplier in many service encounters means that the supplier usually has an upper hand in most encounters thus removing the obligation on their part to be good to the customer who is dependent on them. This is in total contrast to environments where supply outstrips demand and so companies’ service provision is obliged to treat the customer as “king” in order to retain their custom. This reality of the service encounter in Africa reduces the customers’ bargaining power and potential to switch to an alternative source for either product or service. In the end the African customer feels obliged to accept sub standard customer service as a means to an end.

African private enterprise has substantially better service delivery than public service especially government services like passport offices, registration of births and deaths, medical service and any other essential services that a customer might expect from the government. Perhaps customer service personnel in public service offices do not even regard the people they serve as customers, which then removes the need for “good” customer service. Private enterprise on the other hand recognises the relationship it has with the people they service but greater demand than supplier reduces the impetus to provide “good” customer service.

My conclusion is that there is need for cultural re-orientation to get the customer to demand “good” customer service and service providers from both public and private sectors to view customers as opportunities to create relationships that will continue positively beyond each service encounter. This change will require leadership in both private and public sectors, training and adoption of clearly defined performance parameters supported by systematic evaluation. But the starting point must be a review and analysis of prevailing perceptions of “good” customer service to the provider and customer in Africa.

Really, is this what we were holding our breath for?

October 5, 2011October 7, 2011 Taura Khuluma Say it!!4, 5?, Apple, consumer expectations, customer relationship management, Ipone3, Steve Jobs2 Comments

So the “let’s talk iPhone” event has come and passed, leaving some punters a little less satisfied than others because the expected iPhone 5 was not to be seen anywhere, instead all we got was the S version of the iPhone 4. Which got me thinking, what else have organisations pretended to bring to the market, creating hype in the market only to dissappoint with far less offerings when the launch happens.

Do we, as customers, now expect more than what the companies are capable of but if we do why do they not manage our expectations? Apple could have managed the anticipation for an iPhone 5 better. Some people, including myself, have waiting for a show stopper so that it would be our next smart phone but I am afraid I might have to look to other manufacturers for my next smart phone. I’ve had the iPhone4, Siri or no Siri I am looking for more especially at that price.

Apple has lost me and I bet more customers until the next iphone reincanation

Taf Masiye

It's just my imagination!!!

consumer expectations