By Allwell Nwankwo

“I don’t know about you, but as a consumer, I often feel as if I’m being punished.” J. D. Power III, founder of J. D. Power and Associates, wrote those words in his foreword to the book, Satisfaction.

Customer punishment sounds like an oxymoron. It is antithetical to customer satisfaction, customer service, customer focus, customer delight and customer experience – concepts that are familiar mantras in the lexicon of relationship marketing and management. There’s even “customer astonishment” à la Darby Checketts, author and speaker. But customer punishment? Let’s explore this further.

Don’t we, as customers, sometimes think we are being punished by organisations that are supposed to be serving us? I certainly do.

When you see long queues in our banking halls with only one or two tellers working – how do you feel? Most times you have any issue to resolve with the telecom companies, do you come out of the encounter feeling elated? How about processing insurance claims? Or obtaining warranty service from IT companies, electronics shops or car dealers? What do you have to say about returning faulty merchandise to the big supermarkets? Let’s not even talk about the ministries, government agencies or some embassies!

It’s clear that customer punishment thrives in many organisations. It appears that a convoluted service process is the best measure of managerial effectiveness. The more difficult life is for customers, the more fulfilled managers become!

Let me share a personal experience. I have had to register one of my SIM cards three times. I first registered it over two years ago. Indeed, the telecom company sent its staff to my office to capture the biometric data of all its customers there. “Great job!” I thought. Imagine my shock when two years later, I began to receive text messages, followed by phone calls, informing me that I had not registered my SIM card. I was furious, to put it mildly. The company had lost my data and chosen to punish me for it. I decided to dump the SIM card, but realising that my customers were accustomed to calling me on that number, I changed my mind. I reluctantly went back to register the card.

Then I decided to migrate from post-paid to pre-paid service. After the migration, I was told I had to register the SIM card afresh. All my protestations to the effect that the company already had my data and that it was a simple computer process to change the payment option fell on stone deaf ears. Not long, my phone line was disconnected. Again, I reluctantly went to re-register that SIM card. When I narrated my experience at the customer care centre, the representative of the company was sympathetic and tried to offer some explanations, which sounded very hollow to me.

I have witnessed an encounter in which a teller dishonoured a personal cheque (in favour of the account holder) on the grounds that his driver’s licence had expired. Laymen like us would think that even an expired driver’s licence was an adequate means of identification. After all, the bank was not in alliance with the Federal Road Safety Commission to punish traffic offenders. But I was not surprised. I know that even a cow can deposit money in a bank; it’s only when the cow tries to withdraw money that it must identify itself properly!

It’s just customer punishment. But, as I insist, it’s usually easy to see the service challenges of other organisations. How is it in yours? Do you enjoy punishing customers? Do you dish out a rigorous service experience? Do your customers really need to move round your entire office before they receive service? Do you think they need to sign all those documents? Must they talk to five different employees before their complaints are fixed? Do you really believe the customer has to come back tomorrow when just a little effort on your part will make him receive service today?

My suggestion is this: Keep your processes simple. Customers enjoy simple, speedy and efficient service. Make life a little easier for them. They already have enough challenges; don’t add to their stress. Stop punishing them! Why should they buy punishment with their money?