MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Customers Enumeration Should be a Continuous Exercise - Okoye Dubem

CCD: Can we have your brief profile?                                            

OD: My name is Okoye Dubem. I am the Service Center Manager of Gwagwada Service Center in Gonin gora. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from Ebonyi State University (2011) and I am currently undergoing a Masters Degree course in Business Administration at NDA. I’m a self-motivated individual; attracted to work environment that will expose me to more skills and knowledge acquisition. I am always reaching to work environment with an opportunity to learn and develop a diverse skill sets.

CCD:  What are your primary responsibilities?                                  

OD: My primary responsibilities are; Customer relationship management; elimination of energy theft by being responsible for all activities; revenue generation and protection (meeting the cash collection set targets of the company); proper classification on tariffs of customers; monitoring new customer acquisition/enumeration within the service center; preparation of  daily, weekly and monthly reports, etc.

CCD: What is it like managing a Service Center?                                                                      

OD: The following attributes has been my basic management tool for managing my center; these are decision making with a good observation skill, having a fast moving (can do) attitude, being constantly aware of health and safety issues; positive attitude towards competition and being neutral towards matter arising at our work place. 

CCD: As a Service Center Manager, what can you say are your major challenges?                                                                                               

OD: Resolving conflict in the work place, adapting to constant changing policies and managing performances of my team members etc.

CCD: What do you think is the most difficult aspect of managing a Service Center?                                                                                                                       

OD: I happen to manage a high customer base Service Center, my major challenge is trying to educate and inform the customers on the paradigm shift in the electricity industry and defending distributed energy and how it affects their Billing. This challenge has also done good to me because I have been able to handle large crowds and communicate effectively in cases of any resistance or protest.

CCD: What would you consider as your major achievement since you assumed duty?                                                                          

OD: My major achievement would be my increase collections as a result of how I and my team have been able to increase the population of customers in my feeder by several measures. We have been able to have an addition of over 1000 new captured customers over the past 10 months of my leadership.

CCD: In your opinion what do you think can be done to enhance the growth of the Company?                                                                                        

OD: Growth for us has to mean growth in our profit margin and reduction in losses, apart from more investments, the growth of Kaduna Electric is to constantly identify uncaptured customers (energy thieves, consumers) in our network. This is a menace that is eating up our revenue base as an organization, it increases our losses and undermines our efficiency.                 

CCD: Any appeal or suggestion to Management or Staff?                       

OD:Enumeration exercise should be a continuous assignment; increase in staff remuneration/benefits and creation of more disconnection teams to meet our customer population explosion etc. Staff should show passion for our job to help us achieve more.

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