How Do You Deal When The Shoe Is on The Other Foot?

By Mark Kaheru, Public Information Officer, RSCE

I grew up in a world where I was told that to retain customers and build my business, I needed to practice good, no, GREAT customer service. Over the years I have learnt that I need to exercise the same even in relationships with friends and peers.

Many of the ingredients of customer service are the same.

Listen, be honest, show empathy, know your stuff and build trust.

Sounds easy enough.

When we are faced with difficult customers. The ones that always have something to complain or shout about, can we always keep our cool, listen, empathize and be honest? Some people will respond with a “yes, I can.” Others will say they will excuse themselves, go and calm themselves down and come back to handle the situation.

This is all fine and dandy and maybe works. But what happens when the shoe is on the other foot.

What happens when you are the customer, and your data service provider slows down or even loses connectivity in the middle of an important Teams call or just as the plot twisted on that Netflix show?

I live in Najjera, a suburb of Kampala and we have the worst road. In fact, we have more pothole than road so much so that the community recently asked the Town Council to downgrade the road back to murram. We are still waiting on their decision.

Now, you have to understand something here, there is very little reason to have bad roads in Najjera as we have very many top government officials residing in the area and the city of Kampala is steadily growing that side.

The number of shopping complexes and apartment blocks cropping up every day should require better access roads.

On one of the neighborhood WhatsApp groups, I am on, belongs a very vocal gentleman who has always had kind words for the powers that be and who has always declared his undying love for the land and governance. Even when people have made complaints about noise or insecurity, he has always been the voice of reason, asking people for patience and understanding. He has always volunteered to represent the voice of the people to the ones in authority. We have appreciated his efforts, even when they never yield anything.

Recently, he moved his business from One side of the suburb to Najjera. His stripes have changed into spots.

Now that he is a daily user of the Najjera road, he too has questions. Being the vocal one that he is, he cannot help but voice his displeasure in the group.

Recently he even called for a sit-down strike and asked us all not to go to work so the Council can work on the roads, another time he asked the community to storm the Parliament and demand for better services. He is now the angriest person in Najjera.

The shoe is firmly on the other foot, and he is not taking any prisoners.

I ask you again, how do you deal with difficult customers?