KADUNA ELECTRIC NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER EDITION

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Non-Meter Deployment, DSS Director Wades in For Maru Community 

By Mohammed Abbah

 The Director of State Security Service (DSS), Zamfara State Command, Hadi U. Sudawa has called on the management of Kaduna Electric to provide enough prepared meters as a way out of the persistent disagreement between the company and its customers. 

 The Director, who made this call in a meeting with representatives of Kaduna Electric and the people of Maru in his office, said he receives several complaints daily from the public concerning estimated bills and non-provision of prepaid meters amongst others.  

He called on the company to as a matter of urgency take proactive measures to resolve the issues. 

The transformer serving the people of Maru, according to him, needs an urgent replacement adding that the situation has worsened the supply of power to the community.  

He called on both parties (Kaduna Electric and Maru Community) to resolve their differences amicably while urging the company to put more efforts in sensitizing its customers about its services to get the cooperation and understanding of the customers.  

“My Area Command is always ready to give you adequate support, make your business peaceful and protect your lives and properties”. 

Speaking, the Emir of Maru Alh. Abubakar Chika Ibrahim accused Kaduna Electric of neglecting his people despite the cooperation he has been giving the company by urging the people to pay their bills promptly. 

  “I have no other way of describing this other than a discrimination against the people of Maru. Our transformer was stolen, you promised to repair and return it.  I am aware that several reports and complaints have been sent to your table but nothing was done about it”.

 Reacting, the Business Development Relationship Officer (BDRO), Malam Aminu Aminu dismissed all the allegations while pointing out that the activities of the company is highly regulated and that for energy supply to be steady, the people must endeavor to settle their bills to enable the company to maintain its equipment. 

“We respect our customers, we are here for business and we are one family. We have no right to stop giving you supply. And since we are in business to make profit, we cannot do it without you. We don't discriminate against anybody, we respect everybody and we will continue to give you adequate support for the development of the state”. 

 The BDRO assured the community that management is making arrangement to resolve the issue of meters within the shortest time possible adding that customers need to settle their bills as at when due so that company can procure the meters. 

On the issue of over billing, he said the customers are billed according to their consumption. 

In closing, the BDRO thanked the DSS Director for weighing in on the matter and proffering solutions.

Rigasa Area Office, Tudun Wada Community Rub Minds On How to Improve Supply 

By Danjuma Abubakar 

The Rigasa Area Office in continuous effort to improve services to its customers has visited the people of Tudun Wada Community in Kaduna with a view to resolving some issues beneficial to both parties.  

Speaking at the meeting, the Business Development and Relationship Officer (BDRO), Rigasa Area Office, Mallam Ibrahim Mohammed called on the community and opinion leaders to talk to their people on the need to pay their bills and to create an enabling environment for the staff of the company to operate without fear of attack.

The Head Corporate Communications, Abdulazeez  Abdullahi  who was represented by the Team Lead Media and Community Relations, Mallam Idris Muhammad, stressed the need for customers to settle their bills and protect all Kaduna Electric installations in the community. 

The community leaders pleaded with the company to stop the practice of isolating an entire community for the offense of few customers who have not settled their bills as this affects paying and pre-paid customers. 

They also pledged to mobilize all electricity users in the area to settle their bills as and when due. 

Both parties however, agreed to work together to ensure early restoration of power supply to the community.  

The interactive session, which was at the instance of Tudun Wada North Forum, was held at Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi Mosque Hall in Tudun Wada Kaduna.

What We Intend to Achieve With 3-Eye-Approach- Sokoto DE

By Umar Mohammed 

The prevalence of vandalization of electricity installations has reached an unprecedented dimension especially in Sokoto Area Office, the Distribution Engineer (DE), Engr. Usman Abba has disclosed while enumerating the efforts the company is putting in place to combat the menace. 

Engr. Abba who was speaking with Kaduna Electric News recently in Sokoto said it is adopting a multidimensional approach in managing the growing number of vandalism. 

He stated that vandalism is not peculiar to Kaduna Electric but an industry problem, which is hampering the delivery of steady power to end users. 

He went further to reveal what he called the 3-eye-approach in solving the problem of unauthorized tampering of electrical installations. These are: vigilance by staff resident in the areas (first eye), customers and Community Leaders, District Heads (second eye), and then the Police, NSCDC, BDM security, Vigilante groups (third eye).

“We cannot be everywhere at every time so we have taken to these three levels of vigilance and it has started yielding results. Only recently, two suspected vandals were apprehended by the Community Vigilante, who handed them over to the Police; what you can describe as a collaboration of the Second and Third Eyes. 

The involvement of stakeholders is because they are closer to these installations and first to bear the brunt”.  

He appealed to the customers and all stakeholders to partner with the company in securing the company’s equipment adding that they (customers) will be first to feel the pain while the company will suffer revenue loss.  

The partnership according to him, involves timely reporting of faults, energy conservation, prompt settlement of bill, protecting our networks from vandals, stopping illegal energy theft and by-pass of meters and giving the company’s staff, the cooperation needed to carry out their responsibility. 

He equally warned the customers to stop paying money to unauthorized sources/persons but patronize the other payments channels that are available to ensure that their payments are properly documented.   

You Are Owners Too of Kaduna Electric 

By Muhamad Abbah 

The Business Development Relationship Officer (BDRO), Gusau Area Office, Mallam Aminu Aminu has charged staff to be good ambassadors of Kaduna Electric and commit to improving the fortunes of the company. 

The BDRO made the call while addressing Supervisors of the area during the Monthly Cash Collection Review in Gusau recently. 

According to him, the success of the company depends on the customers’ perception of the business, which he said could impact on their response to payment of bills.  

“Therefore, you as Supervisors must play the role of ensuring that your subordinates are properly guided and consult them where necessary so as to project positive image out there. 

Aminu told the Sales team that its performance for last month was “terribly low” and that this created a drawback for the Area Office generally.

The situation, he said must be put in check and Supervisors must take ownership of the job adding that it is unnatural for business owners to allow their business to fail.

 “We cannot continue doing business without making a profit. Find a way to make the customer pay for the services he has enjoined. This is why customers should be enlightened from time to time to encourage to them to pay and appreciate our efforts in ensuring that they get steady supply of electricity”.

Also speaking, the Senior Marketing Supervisor (SMS) Mr. Pius Anthony Abah tasked the Supervisors to leverage on the ongoing Customer Enumeration in generating revenue for the company.  

 “When you enumerate your customers properly, it gives you an idea of the total number of customers that should be billed”. 

Collection procedure must be in line with the company’s policy and let me emphasize that you should accept monies from customers offering to settle some part of their bills. It is your duty to pursue the rest”.

MEET THE STAFF SERIES

Satisfied Customers Are Our Voluntary Brand Advocates

 

GZ: Genesis Zinnas, you work in the Customer Services Unit, what was the unit set up to achieve? 

GZ: We receive enquiries and complaints from the customers on a daily basis and try to proffer solutions within a stipulated time. Another thing this unit does is to get feedback; feedback is very important to enable us fine-tune areas of our operations that need to be improved upon, we also enlighten and educate our customers. If you look at the meter installation exercise, you will notice that there is a lot of knowledge gap; therefore we have taken it upon ourselves to educate them on how to use the meter instead of refereeing them to the Metering Department.

 

CCD: From the much you have done as a Unit, how long will it take for the impact to be felt in the company?

GZ: There is a saying that goes thus: a customer can forget what you said about them but cannot forget how you make them feel. Therefore, it goes without saying that we are the ones that delight our customers in such a way that they are encouraged to pay their bills. As the saying goes: a happy customer is a paying customer.

We cannot comprise on customer satisfaction even though we somewhat operate in a monopolistic market.  They are the reason why we are in business. So, what we do here is to ensure that we make them happy customers. They will in turn be voluntary brand advocates and sometimes whistleblowers in areas where cases of meter bye-pass are prevalent, or if there is any act capable of undermining our services; though we have a monitoring team but we can’t be there everywhere at every time.

All these have impacted on our bottom line positively. 

 

CCD: The job of a Customer Service Person seems synonymous with complaint resolution. How do you resolve these complaints?

GZ: In dealing with customers or as a Customer Care Personnel you have some level of emotional intelligence because you meet customers from different background, culture, religion etc. And of course you must put yourself in the customer’s shoe; that is what we mean by empathy. When an angry customer walks in to lay a complaint, you must understand that he/she is not angry with you rather angry about the services of your organization. That is why a Customer Care person has to be a good listener in order to resolve complaints from a customer no matter how irate he/she is. As we say here (Customer Care Unit), there is a difference between hearing and listening; we listen to understand.

 

CCD: Teamwork is one of our core values; do you consider yourself a team player?

GZ: In an organization such as this, being a team player is imperative to the success of the company because it means that all departments working together to achieve the organization’s set objective. It is only a team player that will appreciate a company’s vision or where it is headed.  

Take the recent decline in the company’s revenue for instance, which has resulted in a renewed call for revenue mobilization drive and how we are going to improve our collection. Most people see it as Sales Person’s job, but it is actually a collective responsibility. 

 

CCD: What is the difficult part of being a Customer Care Representative?

GZ: I would say insufficient Customer Data because most times we have complaints from customers and when we check our system we don’t get complete information on the customer; vital information like house address, email address, or phone numbers. How then do you fulfill your “Know Your Customer” (KYC) when you don’t have all this information? 

This has been a major hindrance to doing our job. There is also a knowledge gap on the part of some of our customers; some of them do not know that the company is now privately run.

 

CCD: The July collection arguably is the lowest we have received so far. Can you comment on this?

GZ: The revenue collection should be of concern to all staff because it appears to be a case of “We versus Them”; rather it should be a problem for all. The company’s problem should be our concern. I feel there are things we can do to improve the revenue collection like cost control.

Look at the new meters that have just been installed for instance; we are supposed to generate revenue because we have installed a measuring device but on the contrary, there were cases of looping resulting in loss of revenue and meter damage.  

We should intensify efforts to ensure that our alternative modes of payment like POS, ATM and Internet Banking are available to boost collection. 

 

CCD: Do you have any suggestions on how we can improve relationship with our customers?

GZ: Yes, there are many ways we can improve our relationship with customers. Firstly, the Customer Care Officer should be equipped with soft skills, being respectful, friendly without being over familiar. Customer profiling based on age, class, culture and many more, sending text messages or emails as a reminder for example: “Sir our record shows that you did not settle your last bill, kindly go to our nearest office”, sending bulk SMS on holidays, road shows to create awareness; all these can improve our relationship with them.

 

CCD: What advice would you like to give to Management?

GZ: The appeal I have for management is that, they should be open to innovation/ suggestion from staff. Also, there should be a uniform standard in all the offices company wide such that when customers visit they get the same feel.

 

KADUNA ELECTRIC FRONTLINE

MEET THE STAFF SERIES

What We Are Doing To Reduce Accidents At Workplace

Mr. J. C. Adamu Team Lead, Health, Safety and Environment.

CCD: Mr. J. C. Adamu, you are the Team Lead, Health, Safety and Environment. How would you describe the safety consciousness of staff of Kaduna Electric, at all levels, in every department?

JC: We have a vision as a Unit; this vision encompasses all that we want to achieve which is to record minimal or zero accidents in work place. And that is why we have been sensitizing and training staff on the need to be safety conscious.

Mostly, we organize training for staff in Engineering and Technical Services Department because they are more prone to hazards. If you look at the accident statistics, it shows that they have the highest number, which is why we pay more attention to them. 

In most of the training sessions we emphasize that the engineers do a job hazard analysis and risk assessment before the commencement of any job. This is to ensure their safety and be mindful of the hazards that might be present. 

CCD: How many electrical accidents have you recorded in our franchise area from 2016 to date?

JC: Last year alone, we had 14 fatalities; two were our staff, 12 were non-staff. There were four injuries recorded. The reason for this disparity in the figures is because we have control over our staff. The high fatality recorded among the general public could be attributed to lack of adequate safety awareness. 

Part of our KPI however is to reduce that number, and we are making progress in that regard to some reasonable extent.  As at today we have only four deaths compared to eight recorded by this time last year. We are optimistic that with the cooperation and enforcement of safety standard, we will be able to achieve zero mortality rates among staff. 

CCD: Can we say that your Unit has made positive impact when compared to the previous year?

JC: Yes. We have made positive impact compared to the previous year because the awareness has increased thereby making our staff more conscious of the hazards inherent in their jobs and this has invariably reduced the number of deaths.

CCD: There is obviously a higher death toll among non-staff members, and you have attributed this to lack of safety awareness. What specifically are you doing to address this?

JC:  One of our strategies is to use the Marketers to sensitize our customers, since they work closely with them. During the regular Customer Consultative Forum there is always a segment to sensitize the public to be safety conscious. We also sensitize the public through their local Chiefs where we tell them that in case they observe any unusual thing, they should report to the nearest Kaduna Electric office where a prompt action will be taken.

CCD: Apart from staff training on safety, what things do you do to?

JC: Yes, aside from Behavioral Safety, the company has also provided Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and First Aid. We ensure that we get feedback on other hazardous scenarios not captured in our training manual and we investigate near miss cases. 

CCD:  What would you consider the difficult part of being a Safety Officer?

JC: Safety is an investment, a kind of investment where you don't get to see the profit immediately; so it is now an issue that is left for management to consider.  We have a draft HSE policy but it is not yet in form of a document.  The Safety Policy shows the direction of the company that will serve as a guide. We also face the challenge of not having operational vehicles, standard working tools and adequate funding in carrying out our responsibilities. 

CCD: Are there sanctions for staff who deliberately fail to comply with the safety code?

JC:  That is where enforcement comes in, as we cannot achieve an accident free workplace without compliance to safety rules. 

We have HSE manuals that stipulate the sanctions for non-compliance, which includes imprisonment in some cases. The company's license can also be withdrawn should it fail to comply.

For staff, we have what we call the Kaduna Electric Safety Rules that is binding on staff; for instance we have two staff who are currently on a 3-month 50% salary cut because different cases of violation.  That is to tell you how serious we are on the issue of safety violation. For minor violations, we write to Admin/ Finance to carry out the instruction on salary deduction where a pay cut is the penalty.