The old saying, “The customer is always right”, according to customer behaviour analyst Petra Vlah, has gathered dust for some time now and was about to enter the endangered species list. More and more, good manners and service have become extinct habits in the last decade and, more or less, the attitude of most service providers was “take it or leave it”.
But if anything, it is the customer that does the service provider a favour by patronising it, not the other way around. Often, the “customer service” of most organizations is poor and “customer satisfaction” is a concern many businesses lost sight of long ago.
Unfortunately, meeting the customer’s needs is not enough. Customers expect that service providers must exceed their needs if they want to remain relevant in the market. Accordingly, when businesses focus on needs alone, they invariably struggle to achieve the goal of becoming an industry leader because customers desire more from them.
Customers want service providers to understand what their expectations are. Expectation here has to do with meeting their present need and understanding that they need more than what they are getting, especially in the 21st century, where technology rapidly impinges on the habits of the customer.
However, while expectation can help you stay in the game, what firms really need to do is to meet the perception of customers, according to a research report by a marketing and engineering expert, Ndubuisi Ekekwe. Perception, therefore, is providing to customers what they never expected or imagined they needed.
Indeed, it is on this simple principle that Zain Ghana made its debut into the Ghanaian market barely two years ago with a policy thrust of putting its customer first before anything else, and delighting them beyond expectation.
Within the short but remarkable period Zain has featured as a major player in the Ghanaian telecom space, the company has rapidly and steadfastly built a customer-centric reputation that has been widely adjudged by both its customers and the general public as second-to-none.
It has, over time, endeared itself to the people through the provision of sound, simple, impactful and live-changing products and services distinctively tailored to suit the needs and expectations of its customers across all segments. In addition, its numerous corporate social responsibility initiatives have touched many lives positively across the length and breadth of the nation.
Recently, Zain further proved its unwavering dedication to its customers by taking the bond a notch higher a fortnight ago, when in one fell swoop it introduced three new and impactful products that promise to ease its customers’ expenditure on telecoms services, as well as enhance their social and business ties.
The unveiling of these three services is directly in tandem with Ekekwe’s belief that it is better to exceed the expectation of customers through perception than to dwell solely on their needs because perception is providing to customers what they never expected or imagined they needed.
Zain Marketing Director Oare Ojeikere, while announcing the introduction of Free Night Call, Pay Back and Friends and Family services to old and new customers, said the decision to give all three products at a go to customers was a move beyond their expectations.
He said the usual practice of giving customers much needed products and services in a piecemeal manner is at variance with Zain’s practice because, “We are constantly thinking out of the box to be a step ahead of the pack in the area of service expansion as well as product and service offerings that enable our customers to stay connected round the clock”.
“As times have changed and people are a lot more cautious with their money as a direct consequence of the financial downturn that has affected all of us, we had to evolve the best ways of giving our customers more value for their money; hence the decision to give them ‘a three-in-one package’ all at once.”
Ojeikere stated that Zain’s Free Night Calls leave consumers with no excuse as to why they cannot enjoy long, exciting conversations with friends and loved ones. He said that with a daily expenditure of only GHp 15, customers can enjoy free talk time from midnight until 5am each day.
The Family and Friends service gives up to 45% talk time to 5 selected numbers on the Zain network. This is for those special people that are always on your mind and with whom you always want to share each moment of the day as it passes. Another unique addition to this service is that one of the five selected numbers can be an international one from the USA, Canada or the United Kingdom (UK) and depending on the need, these numbers can also be substituted with new ones.
By far the most exciting experience for any consumer is to have a chance to receive some kind of bonus for all the hard-earned cash spent on daily purchases of products and services. While your local supermarket may not offer you any incentive for items purchased, the reverse is true of Zain because the latest Payback service allows customers to get bonuses for receiving calls on their line. The service offers customers as much as 10% bonus airtime on calls received from Zain network and 3% on calls emanating from other networks.
The icing on the cake here is that all three products, in addition to numerous others already introduced, can be used by consumers at the same time without restriction. This special promotion represents some of the essential and beneficial measures Zain is offering to improve its services for its customers.
As Zain is a network committed to giving its users the best value for money, these new key products are intended to go beyond the expectations of the customer and let him or her make the most of its advantages because this is a company that places the crown right where it belongs: on the head of the customer.