KONGA: BUSINESSES BEHAVING BADLY – CUSTOMER IS NOT KING (An Angry Note) by Agatha Aduro

Today, I’m calling out a business that has offered me less than satisfactory services.

In December last year, I needed to buy a new phone and I decided to do it online. I had already had a bad experience with Jumia online and all my friends’ reaction had been ‘why would you shop on Jumia when there is Konga?’ Even Daddy knew that Konga Online was the place to shop. So I placed my order for 2 phones on Konga on the 29th of December. I got a mail confirming the order and informing me that it would take 7 days to deliver, but the 7 days might be extended by 3 days because of high seasonal demand. 4 days later, I got another mail with a tracking Number to help me track my order. The phones got to Abuja on the 7th of January which was the 9th day after the order was placed. I wanted to travel that weekend and I wanted to take the phones with me.

So, I made a call to Konga’s customer care and basically told them to try and deliver the next day or if that wasn’t going to be possible, I could go and pick it up myself. They told me that I couldn’t pick it up myself and assured me that it would be

The ironic smile of a service King who doesn’t serve clients well… Are they mocking us? 😮

delivered before the weekend. 7th was a Wednesday. I didn’t see my order till I traveled on the 10th which was Saturday, despite repeated calls and assurances that it would be delivered. On the 10th, I called the customer care and complained and the lady apologized, I got a mail saying they were sorry for the delay and I will be contacted by the delivery personnel within 24-48hrs to inform me that they were coming to deliver so we could work out the details of delivery. After 48hrs, on the 12th, I sent them a mail, saying that I was tempted to cancel the order, since Konga has no concept of time. They replied with profuse apologies again, asking for another 24-48hrs. Then on the 14th, without any prior calls, I was told in a mail that they had called at my place and met my absence and they were going to try again the following day. They included a number for the Abuja office that I could call and schedule delivery. I called the number and after registering my annoyance at an attempted delivery without prior notification, we made a plan for it to be delivered the following day. Towards the end of the workday the next day, I called them because I hadn’t heard back. the lady in the office confirmed that the dispatchers had gone for delivery twice that day and on both occasions, failed to take my shipment out. The shipment had now spent 8 days in Abuja without being delivered. It was about to take longer to be delivered within Abuja than it took to get from Lagos to Abuja. The next day again, I didn’t hear from them till 4pm when I called and told them that I was coming to their office to get my items regardless of what they said or what their ‘policy’ was. Obviously, their policy wasn’t working. I went there, gave them a piece of my mind and collected the items. It had taken 18 days to get to me.

But, that was just the beginning of my problems. When I got home, I realized that one of the phones had a faulty battery and wasn’t coming on. I immediately called back, seriously pissed that I had gone through all of that stress, to be handed a defective product. The customer service agent apologized profusely for all the trouble and assured me that he was going to see to it personally. He told me that I would be contacted within 24-48hrs and told how to return it and that I couldn’t return that item without first getting the call.

I think Konga Online Customer service people are basically told in training; keep saying ‘Sorry’ till the customer gets tired, then it’s your choice to follow up on the complaint or not.

That call never came. I called back after 48hrs, got some more ‘sorrys’ and empty assurances and no call back.

On the 23rd, one week after I had first called to report that the item was bad, I made some more calls and sent them the very nasty letter below. Immediately, I got mails, apologizing, got some more calls with more apologies, then I finally got a call telling me to return the item to their office on Monday. The laid out procedure was that I would return the item, it would be confirmed that it is really defective and I would be given a replacement if it was still in stock. I actually told the guy to check if the item was in stock. He did, told me that at the time he was speaking to me, it was in stock. He conveniently forgot to tell me that it was now a bit costlier than when I bought it or that I would be expected to pay the price difference. I took the phone in on Monday. I was told that their technical guy was out of the office. I could drop the phone and he would give me a call back when he had confirmed the state of the phone.

That call never came.

Next thing, I got a mail saying that my Konga wallet had been credited with the amount. I called Konga online again. I basically asked the guy ‘what gives? You said you would replace the phone. What’s up with crediting my wallet?’ then the guy told me that they can’t replace the phone because there is a N1,500 increase on the price which I have to agree to pay before it can be replaced. I was mad. At this point, Konga should have been looking for ways to compensate me, but here they were, acting as if it was my fault they sold me a defective item. I told the guy to process the replacement. At this point, he also conveniently forgot to tell me that there would now be shipping charge that I would be expected to pay. I was livid when I got the mail confirming the replacement and found that in addition to the N1,500, I would pay N1,000 for shipping. I called the customer care and told her to cancel the replacement and pay the money into my bank account. She started begging me to consider the trouble they’ve been through. I told her to look at all the trouble I had been through, just to get that item delivered. Was it my fault that they sold a bad phone? Or were they trying to say that absorbing the extra cost for their mistake was going to break the business. I asked her to consider the cost of calling Konga every day, sometimes more than once, from 8th January to 26th January. She was wasting my airtime, giving me crappy explanations. So I told her to process the replacement and I promised her that I was going to give them crappy reviews and tell all my friends about my experience with Konga. I also promised her that that was the first and last time I would ever shop with them. So, this is me, keeping my word. People, if you buy from Konga Online, do so at your own peril.
What I want Konga and other businesses to know is this: a satisfied customer will tell 3 people. An unsatisfied customer will tell 300, or in my case, 3000. I also want them to know that it is not cool to treat their customers like dirt, like they don’t matter, because without their customers, they will soon be out of business.

So, if you’ve ever been treated badly by any business, whether banks, airlines, shops… anyone, just let me know, lets spread the word.. It is high time we started demanding better services from people who owe us that much. Maybe it will teach us to demand accountability from our leaders. Maybe I will start a ‘Businesses Behaving Badly’ column and a ‘Businesses Behaving Badly’ hashtag. It’s time to let people know that social media is not just for gossip. If your business keeps getting called out on social media, maybe you shouldn’t be in business.

Change starts with you and me.

#BusinessesBehavingBadly