Sometimes back, I did receive great customer care from the staff of Lira City TotalEnergies fueling station.
The lady served me with a smile and provided me with a service I was socialized to believe was normal for a man and not a woman to know and do – checking and replenishing a vehicle’s oil.
She opened the bonnet with dexterity and with efficiency did the needful. All while chatting and smiling.
Sadly, the customer care experience in Uganda is not always this great.
I do not have the statistics, but I dare say, it is more likely than not that one will experience sub-standard customer care in a lot of businesses in Uganda.
Which begs the questions:
Why is it business owners in Uganda do not pay attention to their frontline human resources, after they, the business owner, have obviously invested significantly to start the business?
Do business owners in Uganda realize or not that their frontline staff, the ones who interact with their customers, have significant impact on the business – as in they can make or break it?
I mean, how is it an employee refuses to sell a product, just because they cannot be bothered to write a receipt?
Yes, it has happen to me.
One example, for context, I was buying cooking gas. The cylinder was loaded in my car already, but the employee refused to issue me with a receipt.
The efficiency with which the employee offloaded the cylinder and returned my cash was dumbfounding.
Yes, I requested him to do so and he did not flinch or think twice about it. He did not care if the fueling station did not sell to me.
Anyway, I went to another station a short distance away and I was able to buy what I needed and with great customer care, including issuance of a receipt.
Apparently, mine is not an isolated experience.
If you would like to know more about the state of customer care in Uganda, here is a link to a more detailed post on my blog.
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