Business customer care in Uganda, an oxymoron?

Over two years back, I needed to buy myself a multi-functional phone, one that I would interact with frequently as I would with a computer, since by then I didn’t have a laptop. I'd heard so many adverts on the radio about "the lion in wireless" in Uganda (Simba telecom), even before I could ever afford to buy a small phone. So when I got money on me to buy a beautiful phone, I remembered the "captivating" adverts I'd heard on radio. I took time, went to simba telecom kampala road, along the “fidodido street”, it was about 5pm in the evening, I enter the shop and found a slim bespectacled dark skinned smartly dressed gentle man wearing a blue simba telecom logo shirt. He was having a hot exchange of words with a customer on his way out, I stood there for about 5minutes waiting for the gentle man to give me some attention, and help me out with the choice of phone I had considered after searching on the internet after 5minutes of waiting, when the customer with whom the gentle man was having a bitter exchange had walked on. The gentleman turns, looks at me and moves on to go assume his seat on the desk counter. To me, I felt so humiliated, when this man looked at me and chose to go back behind the counter rather than attending to me (after all, I wasn’t a visitor in the shop for crying out loud, I was a CUSTOMER!!) I felt like he weighed me basing on my outside appearance, and felt like I was incapable of affording the high priced phones the shop has. Up to today I still believe, that this was the case, because even during the altercation this gentle man was having with the previous customer, he always kept glancing at me and so he was aware of my presence, his ignoring of me was a real stub to me, I just turned and walked out of the shop. That very night I contacted a friend of mine in Scotland and asked him to ship me a phone, I would send him the money via Western Union.

Two years later, this past Thursday (September, 3rd, 2009) I felt I should buy a new battery for my phone, and as well get another plastic casing for my phone. I didn't have it in my plans to ever go back to simba telecom trying to buy something else. but well, this time, on top of the "all cool" radio adverts, they had a public address system outside the shops and they were calling in customers, wow, I am from the post office, and my mind goes, well, probably that guy was having a bad day back then? Maybe they even got better staff now, I think I should go pass by too see if they can get me a new battery and a casing for my phone. This time round, they had expanded, they were occupying about 5shops adjacent to each other on the same street. I went to the first one as you come from the city-square towards watoto (KPC) church, and in there, I found, two guys (probably in their mid 20's) and a lady, they saw me coming in, but they were talking about something that must have been really funny to them, so the girl kept looking at me while they conversed, one guy had his back on me, and the other was seeing me from the sides, I waited there for about 2minutes while they conversed, and I kind of understood, that may be I would be second priority to the conversation they were having. Humbly, I held on until they were done, then the girl goes back behind the counter desk, and then the guy that had his back on me, turns toward me, smiling he asks, hello? I say hello back and I ask him if they had what I wanted, he responds in positive, and tells me to go over to the last shop where blitz videos is (or was). "Well, thank you", I tell him. And I walk on to the last shop.
In here, there was a gentle man putting on a moslems' hat sited in a reclining chair behind the counter desk, and another lady, dressed in a green top sited behind the adjacent counter, counting money. the guy saw me first, and sat still looking at me, the lady glanced over at me and went back to counting her money, I still stood, and waited for at least one of them to attend to me with at least a hello (well last time I'd checked, that's how it was done in a show of customer care in shops) well, after counting the money, the lady now looks up at me and she goes, "hello?" I say hello back, and I tell her what I needed. she told me they don’t have the casings, then I ask, "how about the batteries?" gentle man now gets my phone from me, looks at the battery and shouts across the room to another colleague, "hey, do you have BL-5F", he shouts spelling out the type of my phone battery, the colleague replies in positive with a price tag that I felt was a ridiculous price to me, because a friend of mine had bought the same battery from Kenya 7times cheaper the price they were telling me. I get my phone from the man with a moslem hat's hand and I start to walk out, when I looked back (still shocked about the inflated price) the man and the woman were now laughing at me, gosh, this was so... so mean, I felt, I turn back and go back to them. I ask them "is that supposed to be funny? you are selling me this battery at a price 7times more than the price the battery goes for in Kenya, how fair is that?" the gentleman now starts to say, "that is the price we sell it here, if you want, then you buy in Kenya", I go, “but that’s not fair…” "Your battery is even a fake one" he responds. Jeez, now he was starting to insult me real bad, I ask them, is this the customer care here? "You just go and buy from Kenya, this is Uganda" I started walking out and the gentleman now cracks in laughter, still escorting me with his "go buy in Kenya, this is Uganda". I don't know but I can’t even explain to you how humiliated, belittled, and despised I felt treated by these chaps at Simba telecom. And this being my second (almost 3rd) experience with the staff at simba telecom, I felt these guys are offering way less than what they advertise in the papers, TV and radio, it will forever be hard (if even ever possible) for me to ever want to go back to these people or even recommend the shop to a friend. As I walked out, I heard the announcer on the PA system that was put outside saying, "...simba telecom, we are the best..."
Thinking about this, after some time, i remembered the words of one of the supervisors that had looked at my group's final school project that was aimed at enhancing customer care in businesses around Kampala. He had asked us if we were sure about the impact our project system would impact on the business people in Kampala, “because apparently, the customer care in the city is ZERO” he stated. And what even hurts most, is that thousands of young people (me inclusive) are out there on the streets looking for jobs and can actually do a much better job than these employees of "the Lion in Wireless" but a person that has a chance to sit in this envied position, is actually abusing their privilege. IT'S A PITY.

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