A few years back, the only way to get in touch with a Safaricom customer service agent was by dialing 100 on your Safaricom line. Ask any Kenyan and they will tell you that this was the most frustrating experience you could ever go through. The call would take forever to get answered and more often than not, it would disconnect before you ever got to the “next available customer service agent.” I remember there were instances where I would use three different phones to place the dreaded 100 call, to maximize my chances of getting connected, those were the dark days of Safaricom customer service. It would get worse when your call finally got through but you got redirected to visit a Safaricom Shop for assistance, after waiting for close to an hour.
Today, things have changed, Safaricom’s customer service is among the best in class. The company has shifted the focus from relying on a customer service agent to assist their 28 million subscribers with even the simplest of tasks to having more of a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) customer service experience for some of the most common problems such as reversing erroneous M-Pesa transactions by sending the transaction code to 456 and requesting your PUK number through *100*8#. This is not to mean that Safaricom has not invested well in their human customer care agents, the company has a team of 2,448 agents who work round the clock to deliver the best customer service experience.
What has changed now, is that to get assistance, Safaricom subscribers can use one of the numerous platforms available to do so, such as USSD, Email, MySafaricom App, SMS, calling, using the self-care web portal and social media, that is, Facebook and Twitter. For quite a number of Safaricom subscribers, their now go-to method for getting assistance from the company is through their social media accounts. From personal experience, I have not failed to get assistance from the company through their social media accounts, I especially like it when they give you a call after you reach out to them, it’s just much faster and less frustrating.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS THEIR NOW, GO-TO METHOD FOR GETTING ASSISTANCE
Safaricom’s Twitter and Facebook customer care pages have been active since June 2011 and they have garnered a following of 948,000 and 1.6 million on Twitter and Facebook respectively. The two accounts resolve about 4500 issues everyday with the objective of ensuring customer satisfaction. As they say, all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, or in this case, makes Safaricom dull. Safaricom’s customer service agents have won the hearts of many Kenyans thanks to their liveliness – when faced with cheeky requests from crafty subscribers who are looking to have some fun online, instead of ignoring these requests, Safaricom agents’ responses never fail to impress. It’s not once that a reply from Safaricom official accounts has cracked ribs and trended, for all the right reasons, in case you have no idea what I am talking about, below is an example of my all-time favorite response:
There’s nothing more delightful than a company that can entertain its customer while still remaining professional and Safaricom has managed to do this very well. Aside from the jokes, Safaricom customer service agents also get request from subscribers with issues that have nothing to do with Safaricom products as one customer experience executive, Julius Gatitu, said, “a customer will call and tell you that a house is on fire and them as a customer, expect that you have a solution to that.” Safaricom’s customer experience does not end online, there are customers who still call, send emails and/or use text messages, actually, Safaricom customer service agents answer close to 100,000 calls, 50,000 SMSs and 300 emails per day.
The team behind Safaricom’s customer experience have made it their duty to provide a solution to each and every of their customers’ problems with their promise, “whatever your interest, you can be sure we’ve got your back all day, everyday”, just be careful not to come across ER with your fishy “interests” because the guy will tame you.
