 Good morning to you. Welcome back to Why In The Morning and If It's Tuesday, it's Entrepreneurship Tuesday. Rwai Tufa for Channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle. Ashira is where you can find me across all my social in this particular session. We dive into an interview that looks at customer satisfaction. I'm joined by Mr. Barak Oma, who is the HOD in charge of Diploma and Z-Tech Business Technical Institute at Z-Tech University. Karim Musana, thank you for creating time to be with us today. We're looking forward to this conversation that looks at customer satisfaction. One thing that I've noticed going through your bio and everything, you have a very rich educational background. Tell us who Mr. Baraki is, where you grew up and born and brought up. Okay. My name is Barak Oma. I grew up in a small village in Kisumu called Awasi. I started my schooling at Pala Primary and went to secondary school, to the Borro Secondary School. After that, I proceeded to Ijaton University for my Bachelor of Education degree, taking the option of Mathematics and Business, so I'm a trained teacher. And then after that, I went to Jeikwat, that is Jomakinata University of Agriculture, for my Masters in Finance. And then I'm now back again for my PhD in Business Administration Finance option. So you're very much fortunate to have you on board to talk about, to help us manuva all around about customer satisfaction for the sake of our views back at home, so that they can land one or two, three things when it comes to business. So in 2009, you got a Presidential Award scheme in State House Nairobi. So tell us about the award. The Presidential Award Kenya is just a self-development program for the young people in the country, and it offers an opportunity for the young people to develop their skills, the all-round skills, so it involves participation in community service, and also we took an expedition in Longonot area, so that was the gist of it. Ah, it's very nice. So on a conversation of today being all around about customer service, so starting us off in this conversation, what is customer service? Customer satisfaction. Now customer satisfaction can be defined in several ways, and it depends on the type of product or the brand that the company is offering, and it is simply the way the customer perceives your products, and how you are able to meet and exceed their expectations. So how do I find out or even ask if a client is satisfied when it comes to that space of purchasing a product or a service? How do I find out my client is satisfied? If a customer is satisfied, then one of the ways that you will find out is that this customer will come back to purchase the product, so that is a repeat purchase. They are likely to come back and do business again with your organization. The other way in which you can find out if the customer is satisfied is customer refers to other customers. Yes, customer refers. Okay, so let's look at the importance of customer satisfaction and how actually we can enhance it when it comes to someone who is a business. Okay, now when a customer is satisfied, your organization will also reap the benefits, as in you will improve on your sales revenue because of many purchases. Now as I've said before, a satisfied customer is able to do a repeat business with the organization. Like for example, in our case in Zitec University, if a parent is satisfied with the services that we give, then they are likely to bring to us more of his or her children again to study with us because of the services that we are giving and also we are also able to have a competitive edge over our competitors. Alright, and for someone who is running a business and they are in the process of branding and just starting off. So when it comes to creating loyal customers, how can you end up rewarding them so that you may be sure that actually I'm going to retain my clientele. Okay, first of all we have to look at now what a loyal customer means. Yes, a loyal customer is a customer who is able to do a repeat business with the organization for you to retain these customers. First of all you need to offer quality service to them, the product that you are offering, the brand that you are offering and then again you have to look at now the channels of offering these particular products and the people who are involved. So the employees also have to come in to assist you also, improve on the customer services within your organization and at Z-Tech that is what we do when you go to the reception right away from the gate. A customer feels our impact from the gate all the way to the lecture halls and even the graduation. Alright, and when we speak about loyalty, what a couple of other ways apart from just offering good product and service that we can actually win credibility for our potential client. Apart from now the service you have also to look at the quality of the product that you are offering to these customers. Yes, you have also to go ahead and look at now different ways of improving the satisfaction from the side of the customers. Alright, and I'm so sure for business owners who are out here we have a couple of them who always try to find out why my clientele is leaving, they are pointing out why your customers are actually leaving. So what a couple of courses because I know there are a couple of different, differs from a different person from one person to another but I believe there is a form of similar categories that we can actually point out so that for any business owner there they can be onto the lookout. One of the reasons why your customer may leave your brand or your product is if they are dissatisfied. So you have to continuously keep on interviewing them and looking at the ways of improving your brand. You have to keep them by offering the quality service. You have to keep on improving. In business we talk of Kaizen principle. You constantly improve and you can only constantly improve when you involve your customers at every stage of the product development. Alright, and how do you get to involve them? You get to involve them in one of the ways is maybe through live chats like a customer raises a complaint. You have to deal with the complaints right away and then you close any gaps that arose there by. Alright, so how is an effective customer marketing strategy look like? For an effective customer marketing strategy first of all you have to look at all the ways in which you are going to offer the products to the customer. You have to look at now your target market because that is the most important thing. You have to know your market, you have to know your customers first. So after that you have now to develop your product that will meet your target market. And when it comes to the significance of retail revenue to drive the business forward, what a couple of things to look out for? Now when you want to increase your revenue one of the things that you should look at is now your marketing strategies. You have also to look at the cost that you are going to spend on your marketing. You have to look at the type of the products you have to develop a product that will meet your market and then you also have to go ahead and do some marketing surveys before you settle on the strategy that you are going to use. And that is what we use. Our marketing team are always involved at the development stage of all our products. They also look at now the customers whom we have. Remember it is very costly to get a new customer than to maintain an existing customer. And actually thank you for mentioning that. I just remember that according to a statistic by marketing metrics they say that it's way easier to actually work with a really existing client which is 60-70% to sell for this particular client compared to actually acquiring a new potential client. So why do people or business owners choose to go for a new client? Investing in that space compared to just taking it back to the business and retaining your already existing clients? Most of the businesses they use both the strategies. They retain the existing customers. In Ztec that is what we usually do. We try as much as possible to retain our existing customers and we also look for now other new markets because the existing customers refer us to the new customers. Right. Talk to us about this mentality that we provide good products or services as a company or as a business. So naturally our clients will just come. So what is wrong with that mentality? That mentality of just staying put and waiting for customers to come that is one of the reasons why most of the businesses have gone under if I may use that term. You remember Blackberry, you remember Nokia. Those are some of the brands that were giants in some years but they slept on their job. So that is why you find that now if a business just sits and waits for the customers then in the long run it will be costly to them because the existing customers will also have achana the process where the customers leave the brand. Now at Ztec University what we do we don't just stay put. We go ahead to increase our customer experience. We promote our products through internal marketing of our programs and also external marketing of the programs. Alright. Take us through a couple of strategies that we can use to boost our customer retention. One of the strategies that you can use is through the use of the customer satisfaction surveys because you know what now the customer needs the specification of the items that they need the other thing is through the use of the live chats remember most of the websites are able to give you the live chat and then you can also use that now to immediately respond to the customer complaints you have also to analyze the compliments as you analyze the complaints you also look at the compliments so that you give the customer the satisfaction that is required. Alright. Is there a significant relationship between customer satisfaction and customer retention? Yes. There is a significance between the satisfaction and retention in that a satisfied customer is more likely to do a repeat purchase between the company brands. Number two, a satisfied customer is able to be loyal to your brand they are able to be loyal and a loyal customer in most of the cases they do more purchases they increase the sales revenue within your organization and also give you referrals. And also give you referrals. Yes. It's a doubles word. Yes. And for someone who is a business owner and they are wondering which couple of measures that they can take to just position themselves in a way that they can understand their customer needs. For a business owner maybe one of the things that they can do is the key thing is to know their customer you have to know your customer then you have to once you have known your customer you now develop your products or the services that you are going to offer to them according to the needs that is the key thing for a business owner. So at Zitec University that is what we take most likely to be our key strength that we know our customers we know the products that they need in the market and we know how to provide the services like the Virgin Atlantic CEO Richard Branson the founder he once said that if your customers are satisfied then that will be reflected also in your revenues and one of the things that he does the strategy that he uses is that he takes care of his employees and once the employee is satisfied then that is reflected on the services that they give to their customers and that is what we do at Zitec University What sort of a personality trade should one have when it comes to dealing with your clients because I believe you are meeting different people with different personalities so how should you handle your clientele? Now one of the trades that you have to hold when you are dealing with your customers you have to be friendly when you are offering the service you have to offer the services in a friendly way you have to be empathetic to your customers and also be able to get their views and meet them instantly so that you avoid too much complaints and what a couple of things that we don't pay attention to subconsciously when we are dealing with prospect clients One of the things that most of the entrepreneurs don't take into account in most cases are the requirements of their customers and their needs because we believe that once we provide the product in the market then the customers will just come in and buy the products and that is one of the reasons that most of the businesses do fail and what would be your advice on that? Now to the entrepreneurs they need to plan well it all comes back to the planning strategies you need to plan well on the type of products or the brand that you have you need also to protect your brand at Zitec University all of the employees including our customers they protect the Zitec brand and that is why it is a strong brand it is coming out to be a strong brand in the market you have also to provide quick customer complaints you have to sort out the complaints in a quick way and one of the ways that we have put in place at Zitec University is that apart from the other employees that are dealing with our customers we have installed or we have a call centre where all the customers complaints are channeled and then now from there we are able to guide the customer specifically to the person who is concerned then tossing the customers around from one office to the other So feedback is quite very effective? The feedback is very effective The country is into the new guidelines to just curb COVID-19 the new restrictions when it comes to movement and most of the businesses are actually online What are a couple of measures for anyone who has a business online to just ensure that I keep my customers very close to me they are satisfied and I am so sure I have retained them Yes Most of the businesses have gone online and one of the ways in which they can use to retain these customers is by giving them the quality service for example if I order an item online I as an entrepreneur will make sure that this item gets to the customer and then I have to follow up again to find out just how the customer feels about the product Yes Okay So for someone who wants to start a business during this particular time what would be your advice to that person? Now on my side this is the best time to start a business because most of the businesses particularly in Kenya have not embraced the online market so we have a very wider market in the social media for example so my advice would be if a business wants to go online then they have also to look at now the ways and the means in which they will get the items to their customers because that is the key thing will my items reach my customers in good time Yes Like in Zitec University what we have done since COVID came in is that we all onboarded all our students to the online platform through our Zitec Digital School and we are about to provide all services So it goes back to quality of the product and then credibility building credibility to your potential clients and actually existing clientele So what is your mantra for success Mr. Barak? Now for me success is meeting my clients needs and exceeding their expectations Very nice Thank you very much Mr. Barak Ouma for creating time to be with us taking us through customer satisfaction and you are very much grateful Thank you How can people find you across all the social media handles? At BOMA So if they want to reach out to you and keep the conversation going maybe an email address or something of the sort My email is barak.omaatzitec.se.ke Thank you very much Mr. Barak So that is Mr. Barak Ouma HOD in charge of Diploma and Zitec Business at Zitec Business Technical Institute at Zitec University talking to us about matters pertaining customer satisfaction So make sure to stay tuned right here at Y254 channel the hashtag to use is hashtag entrepreneurship Tuesday at Michelle Lashira is where you can find me across all my social will be right back with so much more right here online in the morning