Great Zimbabwe

Maybe I am being naive!

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , , , , , , 3 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!
bad-customer-service 2

Update from Zimbabwe

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Hello world!

I-Love-Zimbabwe-T-Shirts

My first ever blog as UK returnee, that’s what people like me are called out here. Throw into that my work life and business life, its been an eye opening week. I have drifted into a new world here, I am now into art, culture, development work and value creation. It’s a fascinating departure from teaching global marketing strategy! But I am relishing the prospects of what is in store in both lives. I am getting to grips with working with limited amounts of very expensive internet, pay as you go calls, $2.55 tins of Heinz Baked Beans and $11 for 500g of Kerry Gold butter. The trip to the shops was a proper “shit just got real moment”. Actually that trip explained why nearly all fridges I open here are just water coolers!

But, from a business perspectives the prospects are seemingly unlimited. It’s just a matter of how innovative one is in identifying projects, financing them and planning that could be a limiting factor. Innovative and creative solutions to problems are few here. This market is very short term in its outlook, pricing is unrealistic with every business looking to make as much money as possible today. I feel its unsustainable in the long term especially if a new player enters the market with a different pricing strategy. It will take a shift in culture across all sectors to steer businesses towards a different perspective.

And the politics keeps everyone guessing but I suppose the less said about that the better, there is a lot of guessing to keep everyone entertained without me adding to the rumour mill! We all wait patiently, what other option do we really have? What is more fascinating for me is how politics influences areas that I had never thought could cause discomfort to the political agenda of the day! I have so much to learn here.

As for now I am sitting in a hotel room watching a TV on mute and listening to music as I write. This is going to be the hardest part of the transition, the darkness of the night consumes daylight by 1715 and time drags on slowly until morning. I have 13 channels of nothing I would like to watch and BBC iplayer seems to have been told I moved from England because it now says I am not allowed to watch stuff I have missed! I might need saving from myself soon!

The premiership is back, Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis are lucky to be living in country where the people and regimes are tolerant, if it were a different country someone would have been shot by now. I will have more on everything next week, albeit from a different hotel room!

Calling processes by clever names will not improve Zimbabwe Tourism, Mr Mzembi!

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The right honorable Minister of Tourism in Zimbabwe thinks the solution to revitalising the tourism industry and re-establishing Zimbabwe’s presence in the international tourism market is “Tourism Engineering” Really? He goes on to define this process as follows “Tourism engineering takes a broad, long-term perspective, while focusing on details and identifying the potential that the country has,”

I wish we would stop inventing new names for a critical process that must be carried out urgently, it is simply a matter of asking ourselves three questions as far as Zimbabwe Tourism is concerned “Where are we positioned in minds of the customer as a tourist destination?, Where do we want to be positioned? and how do we get there?” I worked 5 years in Zimbabwean Tourism during its glory days of the late 90s, there was pride and excitement in working in the industry, we kept at pace with developments in customer service, marketing and promotion as well as our international competitors. We won recognition and awards from our peers but more importantly we had a recognisable brand.

Sadly today I personally feel we were left behind in the first part of the last decade. I have regularly attended international tourism  marketing events and the state of tourism marketing in Zimbabwe  at the these events gives a worrying insight into the state of the industry at home. There is no excitement and belief in the product they are selling. The stand itself is a reflection of a lack of ambition especially if presentation is considered against our immediate rivals and those further afield. Year on year we turn up at the World Travel Market (WTM) underprepared and without conviction of what we want to achieve. I personally feel the companies that attend do so out of formality, the tourism attache to the UK also contributeS to this sorry state of affairs by pretending that the market is excited by what she and the exhibitors are doing. Numbers don’t lie, show us the direct impact of participating at WTM  through an increase in tourist arrivals or future bookings.

The solutions is not Tourism Engineering RHM Mzembi, it is being honest about what needs to be done and putting together a strategy to do so, the tourism industry was one of the hardest hit in terms of  the post 2000 brain drain  that decimated Zimbabwe because we had transferrable skills to work anywhere in the world, we had the right training, enthusiasm and belief in our contribution to tourism which made us employeable around the world. So first off, what has been done to replace these skills, Mr Mzembi? Tourism training must take place, bring back exprienced practinioners into the planning process so they can contribute to the development of up to date training that equips those working on the tourism frontline with skills to serve today’s customer in facilities that meet the expectations of today’s customer. Invest in training, bring in exhiled tourism practitioners to foster a new belief and excitement in Zimbabwe Tourism

Secondly, do we really know how the market feels about Zimbabwe, Mr Mzembi? While we train tourism workers, let us go into the markets and ask the customers, agents, wholesalers et al., what do they think of when when they here about Zimbabwe and going there on holiday, what do they know about Zimbabwe? Do their perceptions match with what we would like our customers think about us? Only when we are able to answer these question will we be able to start marketing to the world because we will be able to bridge the gap between expectation and reality on both sides. We will be in a position to speak a language our market understands in formats that are accessible to all of them. Only then can we start to constructiely build a brand that represents us in the way we would like the market to feel about us because through expansive market research we would have collected information that help to bridge the gap between perception and reality. Regardless of how we feel internally about Zimbabwe, tourism thrives on the arrivals of tourist from foreign markets and it is how “THEY” feel about us that determines whether they come or not, which is why knowing their feelings, worries and expectations must form the base of all our tourism strategiec planning.

Lastly, some food for thought, “What is Zimbabwe’s brand image, how has it evolved and is it up to the time, today’s time?”

Here is the article that inspired my thoughts today –

National Corporate Branding; what is Zimbabwe’s place in the global market place?

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , 1 Comment

Some countries like South Korea face a dilemma in the global market place were consumers are not aware that the brands they consume come from there, (Grave, 2010) The worst part of this consumer misconceptions is that some global brands from Korea are misappropriated as Japanese.

All this left me thinking, how about Zimbabwe? where do we fit it amongst nations striving to be known for excellence in one industry or another. Once upon a time Victoria Falls and its imagery were the difinitive representation of Zimbabwe then things changed and the rest is history, South Africa pretty much owns the selling rights to that in the global tourism market. For a significant half of the last decade we seemed export bad publicity and hyperinflation, do any research on hyperinflation there are vast amounts of academic articles showcasing the Zimbabwean context. Thankfully that’s all behind us now but what next and more positively this time please

A desk research on Zimbabweans contributing and making a change in global development in science, technology, business and academia brings up many notable achievers and achievements. This could be a starting point but the challenge is identifying and defining a coherent message and new brand imagery because the Flame Lily and Great Zimbabwe are tired, Victoria Falls is corrupted with misconceptions of whom it belongs to. The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority is supposedly one of the marketers of brand Zimbabwe to the global audience. But my visit to their stand at the World Travel Market found a group of very keen people ill-equiped to sell Zimbabwe to the world as it is today based on my expectations on myself as a customer living in this globalsed market were everything is designed with me in mind. They looked like they have been left behind in the pre-millenium day when tourism in Zimbabwe was flourishing.

So, let’s brand Zimbabwe for tomorrow and beyond. I suspect this will scare people who want to hold on to the past the reality is all present for us to see at  ZTA, we can’t afford to revel in our past glories. The answer, I feel is in;

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