Customer Service or Customer Suffering? Welcome to Nigeria

FACILITY FOCUS

Kenny Akintola

There is a special kind of patience that comes with being Nigerian.

It is the patience to stand in a queue for two hours and still hear, “Please be patient, we are attending to it.”

The patience to call customer care, listen to “Your call is important to us” about 17 times, only for the call to end before a human being answers.

Or buy data, watch it disappear faster than your salary after rent, call customer care and hear:

“Dear customer, kindly restart your device.”

Restart my device?

At this point, some of us have restarted the phone, the modem, the router, our relationship with the network provider and almost our entire lives!

Welcome to customer service in Nigeria.

We have become so accustomed to poor service that we have developed coping mechanisms. We don’t necessarily expect excellent service anymore.

We expect to manage.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem.

The Nigerian Customer Is Always Managing

Take electricity.

You pay your bill. You buy fuel for the generator. You invest in an inverter. You charge your rechargeable fan. You keep a power bank for your power bank and a torchlight beside the bed.

Then, when there is still no electricity, someone tells you:

“There is a fault on the line.”

Which line? Where is the line? When will it be fixed?Nobody knows. But your bill? That one knows exactly where you live.

The irony is that electricity consumers actually have regulatory protection. NERC has complaint-handling procedures beginning with the DisCo’s Customer Complaints Unit, with escalation to a Consumer Forum where complaints are not satisfactorily resolved.

And Nigerians are certainly using those channels. NERC’s 2024 Annual Report recorded 16,882 complaints through its Customer Complaints Units, with billing, metering and service interruptions among the biggest issues.

So perhaps Nigerians are not complaining too much. Perhaps we are simply complaining about things that genuinely need fixing. Electricity regulation is also increasingly moving towards the states, with several states, including Lagos, transitioning to state level regulation of intrastate electricity operations. But for the ordinary consumer, the question remains:

Who do I call when there is a problem, and how quickly will somebody actually solve it?

Because having a regulator is one thing. Getting the light back on is another. Then There Is the Telecoms Customer Care Olympics

There should probably be a national medal for this. You buy data. The network congratulates you.

You open Instagram. The data is gone. You call customer care. After navigating approximately 14 menu options, a human finally answers. “Good afternoon, my name is Blessing. How may I assist you?” You explain. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” You explain again. “Kindly hold while I check.” You hold. And hold. And hold.

Then: “Thank you for your patience.” At this point, you have aged.

The NCC actually has Quality of Service standards covering customer complaints, billing integrity, customer care accessibility and the speed of problem resolution.

So, again, the issue isn’t that standards don’t exist. They do. The question is whether the customer is actually experiencing those standards. Because there is often a very wide gap between having a policy on paper and living it in real life. So, Where Is the FCCPC?The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission FCCPC is not supposed to be a decorative government acronym. Its mandate includes protecting consumers, promoting fair business practices and providing redress when consumer rights are violated. It can receive complaints, investigate, mediate and work with sector regulators. And, to be fair, FCCPC has done some work.

It operates complaint resolution channels, has intervened in individual consumer disputes and has reported recovering billions of naira for aggrieved consumers.

So, has FCCPC been of help? Yes. But has it been enough to change the everyday Nigerian customer experience? That answer is more complicated.

A consumer protection agency should not have to become the customer care department of every company in Nigeria.

FCCPC itself has emphasised that businesses must take responsibility for resolving customer complaints rather than effectively outsourcing their customer service to the regulator. And I agree.

The regulator should be the referee not the striker, goalkeeper and ball boy.

We Need to Stop Celebrating Basic Service. When a company answers our call after 15 minutes, we say: “Wow, their customer service is good.”

When a bank reverses a failed transaction after three days: “At least they reversed it.”

When an internet provider finally fixes a problem we reported five times:

“Thank God.” When a service provider actually keeps an appointment, we are impressed.

But these things should not be extraordinary. They should be normal. Customer service is not about smiling at customers while selling them something. It is about what happens after the customer has paid.

Anyone can be friendly when they want your money. The real test comes when something goes wrong.

Do they answer? Do they listen? Do they take responsibility? Do they communicate? Do they resolve the problem?

Or do they simply send: “We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

That sentence has probably caused Nigerians more inconvenience than anything else.

What Does This Have to Do With Facility Management?

Everything. Buildings are not simply bricks, lifts, generators, water systems and air conditioners. They are about people.

A perfectly maintained building can still deliver a terrible customer experience if residents cannot get answers, complaints are ignored, security officers are rude, maintenance requests disappear into a WhatsApp abyss, or nobody communicates when there is a problem.

Good facility management therefore requires more than technical competence. It requires service culture.

A resident may forgive a faulty pump if you explain what happened, what you are doing about it and when they can expect a solution. What frustrates people is not always the problem. Sometimes, it is the silence surrounding the problem. That applies to an estate, a bank, electricity, telecommunications and almost everywhere Nigerians spend money. The Nigerian Customer Deserves Better

We are resilient people. But resilience should not become an excuse for poor service. We shouldn’t have to be applauded for enduring what should have been fixed. We shouldn’t need extraordinary patience to receive ordinary service. And we certainly shouldn’t have to “know somebody who knows somebody” before our complaint gets attention.

FCCPC, NERC, NCC and other regulators all have important roles to play. Standards, complaint channels and regulatory frameworks exist.

But regulation can only go so far. Companies must decide that customer service is not a department. It is a culture. And consumers must stop thinking that complaining is being difficult.

Sometimes, complaining is simply saying: “I paid for this. I deserve what I paid for.”

That shouldn’t be revolutionary. It should be the foundation of doing business. Because the Nigerian customer isn’t asking for miracles.

We just want the light to come on. The data to work. The call to connect. The bill to make sense. The complaint to be answered.

And when something goes wrong, we want someone to say: “We have received your complaint. We understand the problem. Here is what we are doing about it and here is when we will fix it.” Honestly?

That would already feel like a miracle. Whether we are managing a home, an estate, an office building or an entire city, one thing remains constant: Facilities are built for people and people deserve to be treated like customers, not inconveniences.

Till next time0, stay safe

Kenny Akintola, Chief Facility Officer, Express business support (EBS)