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Quality service non-existent in Kenya?

Is it impossible for Kenyan companies to give guarranteed quality service? I thought the problem afflicted only startups who are mainly product-oriented before they learn to be customer-oriented. I figured its a cost issue for startups, as much as they'd like to guarantee their products, they just can't afford it. But even large Kenyan companies, with entire CRM departments and support departments can't seem to deliver top-grade service. Just the other day I signed up with an ISP who guarantees 99.8% uptime. Roughly translated this means that in the span of a month they can only be down for one and a half hours. Two days after using the service they went down for two- and-a-half hours. On complaining they mumbled something like "...maintenance...sorry we didn't inform you.."

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think it's a regressive cultural thing that customers are somehow 'privileged' to be receiving the service. From the days when there was only one car in the whole neighbourhood, only a handful of telephone lines and no extra capacity, only a few postboxes available at the local Post Office, one was indeed privileged to have access to these things.
But we all (probably just some of us) know better now. Businesses must catch up.
October 04, 2006 12:58 PM
Unknown said…
It is an ingrained cultural thing in Kenya that service-orientation is mostly unheard of. I have had frustrating moments when I have posted myriad e-mails to brokers in Nairobi to execute my stock trades, just to get a reply after a week when the stock price changes hae run me into losses.
This needs to stop. I think one of the problems is a fragmented market that might making other potential entities shy away from getting into the gravy train. If they were more innovative the market is already there with excellent customer service.
April 07, 2007 4:54 PM
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