MEET THE STAFF SERIES

A Good Marketer Must Have the Patience to Engage the Customers...

 

CCD: Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

MK: I am Maryam Kabir Ahmad from Kaduna State.

CCD: What are your primary responsibilities?

MK: I am a Sales Representative who is duly charged with the responsibility of handling customers on the transformers assigned to me (both billed and metered customers). In order to effectively discharges the responsibility, the following are some of my daily routines:

Personal marketing to ensure that customers pay their bills as at when due; PPM monitoring which is key to curtail meter bypass and energy theft as it contributes to our ATC&C losses which affect cash collection target; regular customer payment history analysis, including PPM vending analysis;  embarking on strategies to increase revenue collection (response rate, tariff reclassification, new customers enumeration etc; highlighting suspected cases and forwarding same to the Enforcement Team; reporting of billing complaints (debt) to Commercial Manager and any other related tasks assigned by my superior.

CCD: What are the major complains you often receive from customers?

MK: Low hours of electricity supply is one of our major problem for now. There are also, in some cases, complaints of over billing and request for PPM.

CCD: How do you ensure the problems are being resolved?

MK: I take notes of their complaints and ensure they are properly attended to and also enlightening and educating them on services offered by the company. 

CCD How do you deal with difficult customers?

MK: I handle them patiently and politely. As we all know, the popular saying that customers are kings and masters of any business, we must give them audience and listen to their complaints attentively. And then politely explain the company’s policies and NERC regulation on the situation at hand and be able to convince them to settle their bills.       

A good marketer must have the patience and diplomacy to engage the customer.

CCD: What are your major challenges?

MK: Customer harassment, unavailability of van for disconnection.

CCD: How do you sensitize your customers?

MK: By making them more aware of the situation at hand through personal marketing, customer engagement among others.

CCD: Any appeal to management or staff?

MK: The Management should provide essential needs of the staff to ensure a profitable and successful outcome.