MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Building Customers’ Loyalty is Hard, But Key to Business Success

CCD: Sir can we briefly have your profile?

IH: My name is Iliyasu Hussaini , I am  an indigene of Kebbi State, I was born on 5 April 1989 at Kalgo local government of Kebbi state. I attended Simterlex  Primary School in  Kaduna State and  later proceeded to Science  Secondary School Sokoto from 2003 to 2009. I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from  University of Ilorin, Kwara State.

CCD: When did you join this company, and what are your assigned responsibilities?

IH: I joined Kaduna Electric on 1st September, 2015 and my responsibilities  includes developing  good, strong and sound marketing strategy to enhance revenue collection; enhance customers relations and to make the customers to pay their electricity bills seamlessly without resorting to confrontation or any primitive approach.

CCD: How do you ensure fairness in dealing with your customers.

IH: As a Sales Representative of this Company, my responsibility starts with ensuring that the customers are billed accurately and deliver the bills timely. As you are aware, marketing  is the backbone of the Company as all revenue come to the Company through the activities of the Sales Reps who are always interacting with the customers. It is therefore essential that these business interactions should  be done with fairness to both parties.

CCD: What are the challenges?

IH: Initially, we faced so many challenges, but  we have to come down and faced all the challenges squarely. Many a times, customers insults us, shout on us; call us names; make uncomplimentary remarks about us and even express hostilities against us, but we have to bear it, lower yourself no matter your status or background to make your customer happy. We are now ready to face the challenges frontally, be it positive or negative that may arise in the course of discharging our official duties.

CCD: How is it working under pressure or  stressful situation?

IH: Stress  and pressure, it’s all begins in our minds via our thought or belief. Thus, an important key to neutralizing stress is to fuel our minds with more positive, happy, gratitude-filled thoughts in order to trigger our stress responses less often.Here are some of my favourite tips to make this happen: Cultivate the habit of being gratitude irrespective of the situation. Things may go wrong during the course of our work day, or at least, may not go according to our plan, situations like this are inevitable; remain calm and thankful to God. Then meditate regularly; consistent meditations, even if it is only for five minutes in a day, will help lower your blood pressure. Lastly, learn to say “ YES” if you agree and “NO” if you disagree. Being over booked, over worked and over committed will lead to Stress. You must learn to politely express your feelings and get spiritual, regardless of what “spirituality” means to you.

CCD: It is being argued that the challenges being encountered in the field are largely due lack of awareness on the part of the customers and lack of customers engagement from our part, what do you have to say?

IH: Building customers’ loyalty is hard, but it is one of the important ingredients for the success of a business. It can cost nearly seven times more efforts and resources to keep existing customers than to acquire new customers.

In enlightening my customers, I do take the following ways; Let the customers know what you are doing for them. This can be done via a quick informal phone call or  a friendly text messages either way.

Visit them from time to time to tell them how important they are to your business and how you can serve them better.

Remember their special occasions by sending regular customers birthday and holiday cards. Try not to make it boring (like other companies). If you can make this special cards unique in your way, that will go a long way to building customer loyalty; tie the cards ideas into your business; make sure it contain passion information which is relevant to improving the services your offer.

When you talk to your customer, make sure you take an open approach  to every contact you have with each of your customer.
                               

CCD:  What is your definition of success and how do you measure success?

IH: My definition of success is the outcome of hard work and sustaining the hard work, keep on going so as to maintain your balance. I measure my success through my out put, whether they are qualitative and not necessarily qualitative, If the quality is up to standard then success is achieved.
      

CCD:  What are your strengths?                                  

IH: My strengths are the ability to use my own initiative to take on challenges. I am always proactive at what I do and that keeps my mind simulated and focused.

My greatest strengths would be my intelligence and thoughtfulness. I believe that in every work environment, you need to process every step and be detailed in your work.

My time management skills are excellent and I'm organized, efficient, and take pride in excelling at my work.

I always understand the value of time and I am always able to innovate. I listen to advice from others.

My greatest strength is my ability to focus on my work. I'm not easily distracted, and this means that my performance is very high.
                           
CCD:  What do you sincerely feel is your weak-point in term of your job?

IH: I intended to be a perfectionist; therefore I didn't like to delegate to others. But I have found out that in order to develop any organization, everyone in the organization must be experienced with many tasks and this is very good for an efficient team work.