Traveling around Africa can be fascinating as you get to
meet and interact with people from all walks of life. My recent trip to Dar es
Salaam in Tanzania from Harare provided me with a unique opportunity to enjoy a
truly African adventure. As someone with a Customer Service eye I was on the
lookout for service experiences both good and bad. Let me share with you what I
found fascinating on this trip.
My friend Nixon called and informed me that the check in
process was closing in 15 minutes so I needed to hurry up. I was a bit far so I
obviously needed to hurry to the airport. When I got to the check in counter
they were about to close but they managed to check us in with no hassles. In my
delegation I was traveling with a senior manager in our Customer Service
department and he was nowhere to be found at the airport. My colleague called
him and he said he was about 20 minutes away. The check in would be closed by
then. So what should we do? We negotiated with the check in personnel to do the
process over the phone as he made his way to the airport. They were reluctant
to serve him over the phone citing a situation where someone was checked in in
absentia and they never turned up to board the plane. With a bit of persuading
they eventually agreed to do so and the check in was conducted via a cell
phone.
This got my customer service mind thinking. The standing
rule at airports is that no one gets to be checked in in absentia and here is
an employee who is bending the rule in order to serve a customer. Wow!! That is
truly encouraging. We were amazed at the goodwill gesture shown by this
employee. Hats off to such employees who are sensitive to customers’ plight,
who can be empathetic and relate to a customer’s situation. In a world full of
egocentric minds such employees are a rare breed and they need to be applauded.
The plane we boarded belonged to Ethiopian Airlines which
flies to Addis Ababa via Lusaka. In order to complete the journey we were to board
a connecting flight in Addis Ababa. Whilst aboard the plane one fascinating
thing I noticed is that the flight attendants were all light in complexion and
of similar height and built. It was quite difficult to differentiate one from
the other, more so with the mannerism and way of handling passengers which was
identical. This had its pros and cons. The advantage was obviously a seamless
service that you got from them. They smiled, walked, behaved and talked the
same even uttering the same words. That is consistency and uniformity at its
best. One cannot reach such levels of uniformity without a deliberate service
culture plan. I got to realise and appreciate the intense customer service
programme that Ethiopian Airlines employs.
Now to the disadvantage! I ordered a glass of water as I was
feeling thirsty. I did not take a good look at the flight attendant I had asked
to bring me the water. The water took long to come. I waited and waited until
the time I deem reasonable had lapsed but still she had not returned. I got
agitated and frantically looked to the direction of their serving area until I grabbed
the attention of one of them. She came rushing to me and enquired what was
causing me discomfort. I explained to her that I had ordered water and it seemed
the flight attendant had gone to fetch it from the Indian ocean. There was a
problem here! When I am agitated I tend to speak fast, that is an
understatement, I actually speak extremely fast. English is not the first
language of the flight attendants all of them, so they tend to struggle to hear
the English schooled Zimbabweans who speak better English than the British
themselves. She looked at me in an astonished manner and uttered the magical
words “sorry sir will bring it right away” and she dashed off never to return.
After what seemed to be an eternity to me I decided to get
up and go to their domain to demand the water I had ordered a decade ago. When I
got there the one who seemed the leader of the pack enquired why I had to
resort to coming down to fetch water. I explained to her that I had made my
request to two attendants but the mater never came. She wanted to know whom I had
talked to about the water. I pointed at the closest attendant to us who
immediately denied ever talking to me. I looked around and saw another one
there and I pointed to her saying “that one.” She turned looked at me and said
very respectfully, “sir you did not talk to me.” What everybody is denying? Yes
they both denied and that is the challenge when the attendants all look the
same and you cannot differentiate them. I got the water but was embarrassed I could
not identify the culprit. When I shared my predicament with the gentleman sitting
close to me he told me of a similar situation aboard an Ethiopian Airlines
plane as well. I concluded that the flight attendants take advantage of the
fact that they look alike so it might be difficult to identify them.
Addis Ababa was chaotic! It is the hub of travel in Africa
with connecting flights to all over the world from Mumbai to New York,
Frankfurt to Singapore, and Cairo to Harare. They all take their connecting
flights here at the horn of Africa. We managed to get our connecting flight to
Dar and off we went. There was no drama on this 2 hour flight as it was in the
middle of the night and I was exhausted so the bulk of the time I was asleep
preparing for another adventure which awaited us in Dar es Salaam.
When we
arrived at the airport it was in the early hours of the morning and the
immigration officers were excited to have visitors from Harare. They demanded
that we pay for business visas because there was no way we could come to their
country for a conference only. Surely we were there to conduct business
disguised as a conference. We showed
them all the proof we had that ours was a legitimate customer service
conference. Convinced they then asked what gifts we had brought them from
Harare? After tossing us for an hour they still wanted us to pay them
something! No ways, we were not in the mood for that.
No one was given a special gift from Harare but the
nightmare was about to start. Check out point was smooth and we got to the
baggage area and waited for our luggage. It never came. We panicked and all
four of us decided to storm the ground services to demand our luggage. The lady
manning the desk was as calm as you can imagine. She was never moved by our
panicky mode. She was used to these things I gathered. She explained that it
was “normal” practice for luggage to follow the next day or two depending on
whether there is space on the plane and no apology was given. What? Yes no
apology was given. Welcome to Africa!
My luggage took the longest time to arrive because I got it
three days later and was promised a refund of the money I had used to buy a
change of clothes and other man accessories. The money never came until I left
Dar es Salaam two days later. The return trip was less adventurous but it had
its fair share of memorable experiences.
This is Africa my motherland! I will not trade it for Europe, Asia or
the Americas. When one travels across Africa they can see the need for service
delivery to be increased. Our customer service experiences are still lagging
behind and some of us who have decided to play a part in turning things around
have a big task ahead of us. We will get there. We shall offer great customer
experiences on this beautiful continent of ours. Yes it shall be done.
