Whistle Blowers!

Nigerian customers must learn to voice out when faced with bad service.....just my thoughts. 

Service delivery is not totally new in Nigeria, but the concept of customer is king and adhering to the statement is a big issue which most service providers in Nigeria have not come to terms with.

From telecommunication to banking, aviation, eateries and transportation, business owners treat employees and customers like they are bothering them or they are doing them favours. Prompt service delivery is not given adequate attention, customer representative agents of companies are not properly trained to attend to the needs of their customers and where they are trained, they do no just bother to put their knowledge in practice.

In hotels, airports and eateries, customers are left with no option than to use untidy toilets and attended to by frown faces attendants whose smiling faces are probably left at home.  Sometime menus are served stale and most time a customer might be shouted-down by the company representative. When services are totally unacceptable, bold and outspoken customers who point this out will ordinary not get sorry because the word sorry is like a golden egg which is worth more than a million. 

The irony of this is that consumer protection agencies which are to protect aggrieved customers are not doing enough, the customer is also not too keen to press further on any charges because our court processes are too slow and tiring even for those who are ready to press further.

The tragedy of two weeks ago brought this up and the question keep striking my mind is that who will be the whistleblower for reporting bad services and ethical dilemma. Reading from different quarters and different customers who had boarded the plane before the unfortunate crash stated that landing was a major problem for the plane in question. 

The governor of Akwa Ibom state Goodwill Akpabio also added his voice to the issue because he flew the same plane from Lagos to Akwa Ibom three weeks earlier and he also experienced the same problem.

If all we’ve heard is true which we can’t confirm now until the result of the findings of the black box is out, this has shown clearly that bad service and cutting corners in businesses does not pay anybody (customers and business owners alike) because a stitch in time saves nine.

How long do we continue to rant and rave about a system when we do not learn to blow the whistle when we are confronted with a system that has failed to deliver on its promises, should we blame a system which refuses to give us value for our money or we should blame employees who choose to keep mute for the fear of losing their jobs, the system that has not made adequate provision to protect whistleblowers or should we blame customers for not boycotting companies that treat them like slaves when they are the kings that uphold the existence of such business ventures.

All these answers can only be answered by the time we have a compressive report of what happened with the Dana plane that crashed in Iju-Ishaga and killed almost 200 people and destroyed over 1billion naira worth of properties.