Why Ghanaian Businesses Fail

While driving down to their warehouse to check out some caskets for the burial of my late uncle, I decided to start a conversation with the Director of Finance of this renowned funeral services company in London. This company has been at the forefront of organising funeral services and repatriating dead bodies to Ghana for decades. “So what are your impressions about doing business with Ghanaians?” I asked . “Ghanaians are a fantastic people, however their attitudes in business need to change. Look at me, I am the Director of Finance for this company and yet here I am driving down with you to the warehouse to look at caskets. I am sure my colleague in our subsidiary company in Ghana in the same position will never do that. This company has been in existence for well over 50 years and the owner of the company answers phone calls, writes and responds to customer correspondences and would have happily driven you down here to the warehouse to choose a casket. That is what I mean when I tell you that Ghanaian attitudes in business need to change”. That was the answer I got back from a man who has only been to Ghana on 3 occasions.

And when we got to the showroom, the man happily and patiently showed me around telling me about the various caskets they have and which one will best suit my circumstances. One could sense the genuine sense of empathy in him. He understood the indispensable role people like me (a customer) played in keeping him in work. It was nice. And a day before my uncle’s body was repatriated home, I went down to the offices of the company to pay my last respects. I was fortunate enough to meet the owner of the business. I will never have guessed that the who helped to move the casket into a second room is the owner of that multi-million pound business but for my father-in-law’s intrusive question. In his early sixties, the man was at the forefront of serving customers. He was very polite with us even when it was obvious that we were taking too long to perform the necessary customary rites.

When I arrived in Ghana a day later, I decided to go to the offices of the subsidiary company in Accra to check on the final arrangements being made for the body to be taken to my village. On arrival at the premises, I was greeted by a group of young men who (I surmised) work either as drivers or “loading boys”. After telling them my mission, one of them ushered me to a security guard who then took me to a receptionist. The receptionist was sitting leisurely in her seat as though she had no business being there. I was thinking to myself “what the heck is she doing sitting there if she doesn’t want to be there?” I had to tell the receptionist my story yet again even though I had already told two people ( the loading boy and the security guard). At that point I was already fuming inside by the unnecessary “protocol” I had had to follow. To add insult to injury, I was told I had to sit and wait for the “boss” himself who apparently was on break and could not see me for the next hour or two. At that point, I felt like exploding but I had to hold it in.

Contrast this with my experience in London and you can see how many rivers we (Ghanaians) have to cross in the customer services indunstry. Whereas I never waited for more than 5 minutes anytime I went to the London office, in Ghana I had had to wait for well over 2 hours to get a simple question answered. In London, the staff understood that the last thing a bereaved client wants is any more stress. So all hands were on deck to handle all my queries. You will be asked if you wanted a cup of tea, water or coffee. In Ghana, you are treated as just another client. So there is no sense of urgency; there is no proactive approach to dealing with your queries and there certainly is no empathy.

The above is but one example of the appalling levels of customer services we Ghanaians receive in the hands of our fellow Ghanaians. Space and time will not allow me to go in to the minutiae of details I have on the disgusting and rather appalling standards of customer services in Ghanaian businesses both in Ghana and in the diaspora. Suffice it to say that in the current volatile business climate , there is no denying the fact that every customer must be held in high esteem. Infact research has shown that the average business never hears from 96 per cent of its dissatisfied customers which is very unfortunate in that 50 per cent of those who complain say they would do business with the company again if their complaints were handled satisfactorily, while a whopping 95 percent will do business with the company if the complaints were resolved quickly. This brings into sharp focus the indispensable role customers play in the strategic direction of any business. As Peter Drucker rightly puts it, everything a company does internally is a cost centre, the only profit centre is the customer whose cheque doesn’t bounce.

Interestingly, when you hear advertisements being run on local radio stations about the services provided by Ghanaian businesses, you feel a compelling need to do business with the company. Once you walk into the premises of the business you begin wondering why the heck you even bothered.

When some Ghanaians domiciled abroad decide to go home and settle down, it is bits and pieces of issues like this that put them off . I had a nasty experience with Ghana Commercial Bank in 2008 and I vowed never to do business with that bank again...ever ! I was subjected to what can conveniently be deemed a barrage of repugnant and rebarbative administrative processes that defy commonsense. And I was forced to wonder if the lady regurgitating the rules to me had any inkling of brain in her head at all. And it was not just Ghana Commercial Bank.I found that each office I entered, I was either hounded for bribes or I was subjected to the most inhumane treatment if I was not willing to sink my hands deep into my pockets. And for some of us who have vowed never to be accomplices in perpetuating the dual evils of bribery and corruption in Ghana, we have unfortunately become victims of that obnoxious culture of poor cutomer services. And there are a lot of Ghanaians (and foreigners alike) who have been victims of this appalling state of affairs.

It happens in every facet of Ghanaian businesses. In restaurants, one is kept waiting forever without any reasonable explanation and when the so-called waiters or waitresses finally arrive, there is no apology for the objectionable manner the customer was kept waiting. In Ghanaian shops, some of the shop owners will even have the audacity (or rather lack the courtesy) to ask you to climb up a ladder to pick up the stuff you want to buy. And in all these, they dont appear to see anything wrong with it. The truth is that if I walk into a Ghanaian restaurant or shop, I don’t expect to be treated as a Ghanaian. I expect to be treated as a customer first and any other thing second. And as a customer I expect a certain modicum of customer services. I find it rather objectionable to have to be patronized the way some Ghanaians do in their businesses.

What is even more frustrating is the fact that this culture is not just among Ghanaians in Ghana; it is also manifested by Ghanaians in the diaspora (who should know better). One would have expected that given the exposure they receive in this part of the world, Ghanaian enterpreneurs with businesses either in the diapora or in Ghana would have emulated and adopted the sterling levels of customer services in some parts of the western world. But no , some of these guys are even worse. They have no appreciation whatsoever of this indispensable ingredient necessary for the survival of a business. Most of them are rude, arrogant and downright ignorant. And the unfortunate thing is that when the business begins to crumble under the weight of their own incompetence, they begin blaming it on one innocent old woman in their village (who perhaps knows next to nothing about witchcraft).

Alhaji Asuma Banda will tell you that one doesn’t need an MBA to run a successful business but what is needed to succeed in the current volatile and competitive business climate is a strategic focus with customer relations management at the heart of the strategic plan. Successful indeed are enterpreneurs who are able to identify the threats to avoid and the opportunities to pursue. Until Ghanaian enterpreneurs begin thinking along this direction, their businesses will continue to wallow in failure and an inability to grow into the future.

Sheriff-Adams Yakubu

adamsheriff2008@gmail.com

London