Evolve Insights

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on April 12th 2016 As customers there are those service providers we trust dearly. We take their word as the gospel truth and believe they have our best interest at heart. This trust has been built over time, interaction after interaction the trust is cemented and the relation strengthened. We become advocates of such organizations and fight off unbelief from others. We keep going back and even introduce our family, our friends and our colleagues. We trust them because of past experiences and also what we have heard from others. This trust however can be broken in an instant. Many long serving customers have left companies that they once upon a time believed in but who they no longer can trust. Though there are some who go back after reassurance there are those whose trust is broken beyond repair. Such customers promise themselves never to eat at a certain…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on April 5th 2016 Lucy Kiruthu There is an old idiom that goes “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” It has a simple meaning that once we have been fooled or tricked we need to be wary of it happening again. Like many that have been fooled on April 1st in past years, I was very wary on Friday and for sure I do not get fooled this year. In the business circles, I suspect that the people who get fooled the most are customers. As customers, we get fooled by websites, by advertisement, we get fooled by sales people and we even get fooled at the point of sale or service. Do we get fooled only once or do we get fooled twice, thrice and even four times?  Why do we accept to be fooled the second, third and fourth time? Are…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on March 29th 2016 Lucy Kiruthu Fast Food eateries have evolved. The days of Munyiri’s fish and chips are long gone. In case you have no idea about Munyiri’s please get insights from those who went to college in Nairobi in the 90’s and possibly in the 80’s. My best memory was when the Egerton University bus parked right outside Munyiri’s. I do not remember much about the customer experience or the fish but the chicken was well loaded with calories for our trip back to Njoro and it was tasty. By the time I got my first salary there was a certain Steers on Tom Mboya Street that I really liked. It seemed clean and organized and the Ice-cream and the chicken was like nothing I had tasted before. Before Steers hit the market there was off course Wimpy with the one at corner house being a favourite…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on March 22nd 2016 Lucy Kiruthu Customers hate to wait.  They hate to wait for phones to be picked up, for emails to be responded to or for assistance to be received at a service point. Many grow impatient, they become edgy, and they start showing signs of disgruntlement. I have disconnected calls after waiting too long for next available representative even after being assured that my call was important to the organization. Many have driven off from petrol stations after waiting too long for staff to conclude an animated conversation. Others have walked out from one restaurant to the next after waiting too long for a waiter to recognize their presence.  To a bank customer, 5 minutes waiting on a queue that is moving slowly because the tellers are few or are slow feels like 10 minutes. It is for this reason that Smart Companies need to continuously…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on March 15th 2016 Lucy Kiruthu What brand is your customer experience? Not many of the chief executive officers in Kenya’s service organizations would give a straight answer to this question. One such CEO’s responded to the question with a question. He sought to know what I really meant by that. What I mean is “How would you describe your company’s customer experience?”  Is the customer experience on-brand or is it off-brand? Organization across the globe spend billions of dollars developing brands. These brands mainly at the corporate level or at the product level such as I-phone take time to build. The five most powerful brands in the world namely Apple, Microsoft, Google, Coca-Cola and IBM as per Forbes 2015 ranking need not much introduction. In fact a quick glance at the top 100 most valued brands according to Forbes yields more than 90% brand recognition. The key question…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on March 8th 2016 Lucy Kiruthu There is a quote by Richard Branson of the Virgin brand that has become a favourite of many employees. It reads “If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers”. Many versions exist and there is even one that starts with “Clients do not come first, employees come first”. I am yet to trace whether indeed this part of the quote is from Branson as purported. This quote on taking care of employees has provoked an interesting debate on the customer and employee positioning in organizations. Who comes first? The customer or the employee? Without the employee a company would not be able to serve its customers and without customers a company would not be able to pay its staff. At the center of the customer service debate is the employee and employer relationship or the staff and…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on February 23rd 2016 Lucy Kiruthu Is the Customer Always Right?  After corporate Customer Experience pep-talks and even during trainings this question always comes up. Why would someone ask this question yet they know the answer already?  It is quite interesting because I know that most participants wish that I could quickly jump in with a YES. Once in a while I request the participant who asked the question to answer it and sometime if time allows I involve other participants. What do you think?  Do you really think the customer is always right? All of us are customers, are we always right? Are we not sometimes wrong? For instance, if I erroneously send money to the wrong person via the mobile phone why blame Safaricom? Or if I do not ask the waiter to make my chicken curry mild and she delivers it hot– whose fault is it?…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on February 16th 2016 Lucy Kiruthu In determining the best strategies, smart companies look at many aspects of the internal and the external environments. Every student of business can tell you more about identifying strengths and weaknesses from the internal environment as well as opportunities and threats from the external environment. Most will also happily go on to detail the political, economic, social cultural, technological and even ecological and legal environments. Others in business are keener on the industry analysis looking at the ease of entry or the availability of close substitutes amongst other aspects. Smart companies in addition to being aware about what is happening in the environment spend considerable time and effort understanding their customers and building a strong bond with them. They know who their loyal customers are and their first priority is to hold on to these customers. Unfortunately, there are companies who put their…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on February 2nd 2016 Lucy Kiruthu Companies need policies, this is indisputable. In many companies staff and managers alike are well aware of the key policies whether written or unwritten. These policies empower employees and guide them in thinking and in decision making. Good policies in addition make allowable discretion clear. When staff need to take action such as create a new account or managers need to discipline staff, it is much easier if there is a guideline. Polices increase management effectiveness; they do so by offering predetermined answers to routine problems, reducing uncertainties, driving uniformity, and helping standardize many repetitive decisions.  Companies without policy guidelines are less effective since managers and staff have to consult often and use their discretion in everyday decision making without clear guidelines. Most companies have written policies especially in the area of human resources management. A few companies also have written customer service…

As it appeared in the Daily Nation on January 26th 2016 Lucy Kiruthu I had the opportunity to work in the airline industry. The complexity of this industry baffled me and to-date it still perplexes. Do customers really like to fly?  What do they like? What don’t they like? Why are they charged different fares? Why are the no-frills airlines having high passenger numbers despite having the most customer complaints?  These are just some of the questions of interest. Simply stated, airlines offer transport from point A to B. It is a service that is offered with many other considerations. A top consideration is safety. Other considerations include pricing, on-time performance, inflight experience, airport services, baggage service etc. There are numerous customer interactions before leaving point A, during the journey and after getting to point B.  The interactions happen during booking, security-checks, immigration, check-in, lounges, boarding, inflight, disembarking, baggage service among others. It is as a…