By Chris Onuoha

Ajoke Yusuf is a Sales and Customer Success Expert. She is a results-driven professional with a strong background in Sales, Business Development, and Communication. She has a remarkable track record of accelerating growth and revenue for high-net-worth companies, making her an excellent Sales and Customer Success champion.

In a recent interview with the media, Ajoke expressed her sense of fulfillment as she reflected on years of growth and hard work. She remains optimistic about what the future holds and is excited to execute new projects that showcase her learning abilities. For Ajoke, the driving force in her life is making an impact.

Throughout her career, she has dedicated over 13 years to promoting the growth and profitability of five prominent companies in the African ecosystem. These companies operate in key sectors such as telecommunications, media and technology, agriculture, financial services, and hospitality industries.

From customer care management to service delivery, customer retention, and new business development, she has progressed in her career. She has successfully established business relationships with clients and made a significant impact on customer retention.

She is passionate about helping others grow, gain confidence, and make valuable contributions to their organizations. With experience working with companies in the early and growth stages, Ajoke takes pride in her professional journey and the opportunities she has had to learn and develop. She was among the first agents in 9Mobile’s contact center in Nigeria, joining the company in its second year of operation. She progressed through the ranks before eventually departing.

In her words, “I recall being part of a team that excelled in creating an innovative work pattern by thinking outside the box. We referred to it as ‘Next Best Action’, and I played a significant role in emphasizing its importance. The primary objective was to enhance revenue generation by leveraging exceptional service.

“Whenever customers contacted us with complaints, and we successfully resolved their issues, we took it a step further. We lunch an app that meticulously profiled their call and data usage patterns. Armed with this valuable information, we could propose customized services to the customer executive, who in turn could swiftly sell them to the customer. The remarkable aspect was that payment was promptly processed, ensuring a seamless and efficient experience for all parties involved.

“It was a program drawn to give customers on our platform quality service delivery with satisfying effects. It is basically making sure that customers get their money’s worth by advising them on the best way to use their phone data and call credits without undue waste or complaints. We also do a routine check on our customers’ call records; acknowledge their call challenges, and engage our technical department to embark on line, cable, and mast repairs for effective services.

“It worked very well, and also attracted more customers to the 9mobile services, increasing their revenue during the period when you could easily port your network and retain your number. Thereafter, I was moved to another section on promotion having successfully handled the section,” she said.

Ajoke is a passionate individual who specializes in collective capacity development. She is driven by a desire for quality and excellence in performance and is emotionally invested in business growth. Additionally, Ajoke finds great fulfillment in seeing individuals grow in their careers within the workplace.

Her career has evolved beyond customer care services to business development. She has created business relationships with customers and has worked to make a great impact on customer retention. She is driven by the knowledge that people whose lives she has touched are growing and appreciating her effort on them. Her interest is in business and people’s growth at an early stage in business establishments.

Her career has taken her from customer care services to business development, where she has excelled in nurturing strong customer relationships and improving customer retention. She is motivated by the impact she has on people’s lives and is passionate about helping individuals grow and succeed within the context of business development. Her focus lies in early-stage business establishments, where she can make the most significant impact.

“I also help businesses train their customer care personnel on how to effectively manage people and human resources. This is done in a way that personnel would use their residual knowledge to think outside the box in some situations the management has not improved on, or created the enabling space, which I see as an added advantage to personal growth in the workplace.”

On how she overcomes challenges, she said, “I have a superlatively positive attitude to life and I am equally a thoughtful and thorough person. As much as people put much effort into their work, I have to connect with them somehow for effective customer relationships. That has been my work mantra.

“You also have to maintain a balance between family and workplace. It’s teamwork, though. I create that enabling space to connect both for effective results. I also position my team to see the workplace as a training ground, where lots of learning goes on. I create the opportunity for them to acquire extra skills and knowledge that would benefit them after moving on to another job space. Ordinarily, I package my team to be high and proficiently independent with the confidence to work without supervision in any workspace they find themselves.

“I have also developed human capacity in the area of engaging people to develop themselves or get skills for jobs of interest. My passion is to help and activate people and companies to grow and ensure they remain focused while they grow,” Ajoke noted.

She adds, “Besides, I am currently working on a new project billed to be unveiled on my birthday precisely. And it is called “The Left Turn.” The project is a unique one for me. It entails engaging and interacting with people in an intelligent conversation. And by so doing, I get facts about their life, get them to reveal those intriguing moments of their lives; eventful and uneventful periods in their life journey or career growth, and also bring to fore what life means to them generally, including those issues that inspire and influence their decisions in life.

“Basically, ‘left turn’ is for people who are or may have been biased towards early decisions in life, such as career choice, business, or a particular course of action which, eventually, turned the other way round. The meaning of ‘Left Turn’ is like assuming you are making the right choice or decision in life but all of a sudden, it turns out to be negative, and in the process, your positive attitude would play to navigate.

“Left turn experience is a pattern and structure that shapes positive decisions in the long run. Some people who studied a particular course, hoping to practice the same profession after school, such as doctors, engineers, and lawyers among others may turn out to excel in another career other than what they have wished or studied.

“Most businesses are looking for individuals that possess structured patterns in education. So, the residual experience garnered in pattern structure would be effectively applied to the desired job at hand. Building a learning pattern would be a habit that helps one move from one career to another if it is properly done. And an individual can excel in a job he finds himself in if such a structured pattern applies,” she added.

Ajoke mentioned that ‘Left Turn’ teaches people the benefits of acquiring structured patterns of learning for career growth in any field.