Ubong Nkanta, Head of Customer Experience Governance for one of the top 4 banks in Nigeria, explores the ideas of customer understanding and CX maturity, all through the lens of Bruce Temkin’s models. This closer look at maturity poses new questions for CX professionals, as we also unpack the currently tumultuous times in the Nigerian economy.
Episode Summary
Customer Understanding
Why is it vital to understand your customers on a deeper level? Let’s have a long story short. By intentionally understanding their customers’ preferences, behaviours, needs, and expectations, organisations can improve customer experience, gain a competitive advantage, increase customer lifetime value, innovate, and save costs. When companies know their customers well, they can provide services that meet their needs, leading to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and more revenue.
Customer Experience Maturity
Just like in life, where we go through different stages of growth, organisations can also go through different levels in their journey towards serving their customers better. According to Bruce Temkin, there are five levels of CX maturity in total, but a recent one has been added, which is called “Ignore.” Basically, this means the organisation isn’t interested in focusing on customer experience at all. On the other hand, the highest level is “Embed,” where every single person in the organisation is responsible for providing an excellent customer experience.
Only about 4% of companies are currently at this level, so there’s definitely room for improvement. It’s important to measure their progress in customer experience and be intentional about improving it if they want to become a market leader.
To discover more and learn how CX maturity and deeper understanding can transform customer experiences, check out our full episode with Ubong – available on all your favourite channels. Now including YouTube!
This article summarises podcast episode 87 “Is Your CX Strategy Mature Enough?” recorded by CX Insider. For more information, listen to the episode, or contact Ubong on his LinkedIn profile.
Written by Marcell Debreceni
Full Episode Transcript
Marcell: Do you have any, like, funny stories about a really awful customer experience that you had?
Ubong: So there’s this airline, right…?
Marcell: Hey everyone, welcome back to The CX Insider Podcast with me, your host Marcell. Today we gain insight on the importance of truly understanding your customers and we unpack the idea of maturity, finding out what maturity can mean for customer experience professionals today, especially in banking. Now we’re joined by the head of customer experience governance for one of Africa’s leading banks, Ubong Nkanta, whose views are his own and not affiliated with the bank itself. But if you’d like to learn more about Ubong, you can connect with him on LinkedIn. Now enjoy the episode and if you do, why not subscribe to our YouTube channel for CX Insider’s best content or share the episode and leave a comment down below? By the way, this podcast is brought to you by ACF Technologies. Now let’s jump in. We usually kick off with an introduction of our guests, So would you like to tell us a bit about yourself, what you do and who you are?
Ubong: All right. Thank you. Marcell. Thanks, Alex, for having me. What a great privilege for being hosted by you. All right, first and foremost, um, it’s a great privilege to be on this set. Ubong can taste my name, and currently I oversee customer experience governance in one of the top four banks in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the largest economy in Africa today. Right? In that position, I’m responsible for setting the customer experience strategy, managing the customer insights program for the organization. And I’m also responsible for service, recovery, service level management. And also I oversee the customer experience functions across the other subsidiaries, which cuts across other African countries.
Marcell: Wow. Yeah. So you have a lot of responsibility then. Thank you. And there’s obviously quite a tumultuous time going on in Nigeria with a lot of different issues, like the new introduction of the banknotes, with the new currency post-COVID, and also the government trying to move to cashless. What kind of problems does this create in the landscape of banking in Nigeria?
Ubong: You know, we all know the impact of COVID on the economy globally. Yeah, right. For in Nigeria, one of the some of the things that impacted the Nigerian economy was reduction in lending. And we also saw an increase in adoption of digital by customers. And we also see an emerging of new players right in the banking space then. So those are the things that came with post-COVID. Because of that, the regulatory body also had to stiffen the regulations around the policies around to ensure that destabilized. Right. That sector. Sure. Now, in terms of the country today, as you are aware, the CBN being the regulatory body financially for the country. Right. And based on their empowerment, they are actually the currency managers. So they manage, they manage the currency for the country. They decided to redesign the Nigerian currency. So some of the currencies like the notes, like 1000 naira note and the five. So we have the 100 naira notes, 200 naira notes, 500, 1000 naira notes. So they decided to redesign it. Why were they trying to do that? Number one, to check counterfeiting. Right. Okay. Then number two, to reduce the expenditure on cash management. Right. Moving cash and all that. It has actually been a heavily cash economy, right? Transactions are done with cash mostly. So they also trying to move to the cashless economy. But this came with its own challenges. The intent is very positive. However, the impact of it, the process of it has actually brought pains right to our customers. And now this brings us to the fact to say how do we do things like this to ensure that the experience right by the customers is optimal, is excellent at all times. So those are the things that we are facing currently. Recently.
Marcell: Could you maybe share some insight into what similarities or differences you perceive between customer behaviour in those two different markets?
Ubong: Well, you know, every I would say location, they have their own nuances, they have their own preferences, and they have what drives their day to day transactions. Right over here in the UK, the mode of transaction is not as cash based compared to Nigeria today, even though we are getting over there as well. And then also there is the level of organization, right, and also the infrastructure. But in Nigeria today, we are progressing. We are getting there, especially with the advent of this, the Naira redesign, there has been an increase in transaction velocity. That means the banks are being forced to either step up their game in the infrastructure. Right. And also we’ve seen new entrants, right. The fintechs and the new banks are coming on board, you know, which are things that already been happening over here. But I think customers’ expectations are universal banking. They want to be able to get their banking transactions done on time, alright and seamlessly. So I think that is basic. But however you could have the changes because of the economies, there are different economies. The level of growth might be different. The main organizations in those economies should be able to domesticate their customer experience to meet the needs of their customers. You meet them where they are. Years ago, when I was developing the complaints management process, I actually learned from one of the big banks in the UK, right? I studied their process and I was able to adapt it, domesticate it. That meets the needs of the Nigerian banking space, right? Then adopt the same customer’s behaviours are actually impacted based on the environments, right? What is going on, what is happening around the economy and a lot of other things.
Marcell: Has there been any specific pain points with these changes?
Ubong: Absolutely. There is no change that doesn’t come with them with some level of pain. Pains along the line. But it’s going to be in the long run, it’s going to be for the growth, for the benefits of the citizens. Now, so one of the key things today will be limited amount of cash, right? Because it has been a cash based economy. Mostly we have people, especially those in the rural areas. Right. They were basically carrying out a transaction based on cash. But now financial inclusion, those people, there’s a bit of penetration of the digital in those areas, which is going to be much easier, right, to transact.
Marcell: So you think in the long run it will be beneficial?
Ubong: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Marcell: On the note of stuff being beneficial, have you heard about ACF Technologies? The global leader in Customer Experience Solutions provides tailored software that can exceed the expectations of any business, from appointment booking to queue management and event scheduling creates the tools you need to take your customer experience to the next level. Want to find out more? Check the link in the description or head over to acftechnologies.com. Obviously with having this wide variety of problems, especially in a market that is so large with so many different types of customers, everyone is different and they all have their own types of different problems, especially in that kind of environment. What do you think is the main benefit or value that can be found in truly understanding your customers on a deeper level?
Ubong: Basically, what is customer understanding? It’s actually the intentional approach by organizations to understand the preferences, the behaviours, the needs and the expectations of their customers. And this can be done by you leveraging on data, leveraging on their activities. Now, in Nigeria today, what are the benefits of any organization investing in customer understanding? One: Improved customer experience. When you know me and you know what I need and you know how I want it when I need it, you will serve me right. And by serving me right, I am satisfied. Customer experience has to do with the emotional connection, right, of customers based on their interactions with the services and products offered by organizations. If you know me very well and you offered me the things I need and how I want it and where I need it, you will actually I’ll be connected to you right emotionally, and I’ll be satisfied. Then the next one is competitive advantage. If you know me right, you will make sure that consistently you are rendering services that meets my need and that will give you an edge over your competition. Right? And also it’s also about increasing the customer lifetime value. If you know what I need, if you understand what my expectations are, there’s a likelihood that I’m going to buy more from you.
Ubong: You know, get to know more about your services. And that’s an opportunity for you to upsell and to cross-sell. And then another thing is innovation. When you know your customers, you have the opportunity of constantly ideating, innovating, right, to make sure that you meet their needs. And these positions, any company or any organizations that innovate too right above others. Now finally, but not the least, is cost saving. When you are able to know your customers, you’re able to know what are the ways in your service delivery. Right. Mean reduction of cost in that and also operational efficiency. This enables you to cut your cost in the long run. It boosts your revenue and also boosts your growth because you know the customers, right? When customers are satisfied, right. They are going to keep on being loyal customers. They’re going to buy more from you. And I like saying that customer retention is a new acquisition if you retain the customer. All right. You’re going to get much more from me. That means an increase in my lifetime value.
Marcell: And of course, you know, there’s that old saying that it costs, what, like seven, six times more to acquire a new customer than retain a new one and that sorry, retain an old one. And that absolutely resonates here as well. Yeah, sure. Do you think that banks especially don’t spend enough time or resources trying to truly understand their customers? Do you think customer understanding is something that should be looked at more?
Ubong: Yes, absolutely. Inasmuch as where you are making your money from, where you’re generating your income and revenue right comes from the customers, you need to know them. So take, for instance, now in other sectors like Netflix, like telcos, they spend time to understand the needs of their customers and they are constantly offering bringing new offerings and services to match the needs of their customers. So likewise, banks the same way. Now the banking customers don’t expect you to treat them because only banking they want. They’re actually measuring you based on the experiences in other sectors, right? You’re not competing against banks anymore. You’re competing against other organisations in other sectors that are also offering services. You’re competing against the hotels, you’re competing against the travel agencies, the airlines and all that. So that’s the I that’s the approach that banks should also look at today, knowing fully well that you’re dealing with customers with diverse expectations and measuring the impact you’ve had on them, not only on your own services, but on all run a total service that they may not have an all-round experience.
Marcell: To round up. Ubong has unpacked the contrast between the world of and the banking of Nigeria and the UK whilst exploring the need for better practices in understanding the consumers in those environments. How can organisations achieve this sense of understanding more effectively? Are there any specific methods which reign superior over others?
Ubong: Today we say we are in the experience economy. Right. And that means you need to understand everybody is whatever they’re doing is how they feel, right? The connectedness they’ve had with you and with your services. So, number one, I think organizations should actually invest more in advanced analytics. What am I saying? That predictive analysis is very important. Making use of AI or machine learning to know your customers, to know their preferences. So for instance, in one of the organizations. So today we are able to predict the likelihood of these customers churning like this, customers buying this. So the things that are being used by other sectors also is the voice of the customer programs surveys. But the thing is that they shouldn’t be the conventional approach of getting, of solving customers and just saying, okay, how satisfied were you? It’s being able to leverage on the feedbacks that are given. So so today you will ask customers some basic metrics or how satisfied satisfaction ratings NPS, customer effort score. Also, you ask them for verbatim comments inside the insight you’re looking for lies in those verbatim comments. That’s where they’re really telling you the experience and you should be able to mine the data in that verbatim comment. Not only are you mining the data, but you should be able to close the loop. So for instance, now a customer would have scored you, let’s say six right in your net promoter score. That six means that customer is a detractor, right? It’s not enough for you to just go and work on it. It’s for you to get back to the customer, identify what was the problem, because therein lies we could gain more insights on why the customer rated you that way.
Ubong: And with that you are able you’re able to identify what the problems are and get it done. Now, in voice of the customer programs, it’s not enough to just carry out a vanilla survey, right? You need to carry out surveys, I mean, across the customer journeys, right? From onboarding to support to every aspect of the customer journey. You should be able to check and to rate and to find out what it is. You’ll be surprised that just at the onboarding you’re going to lose the customer. The customer has dropped off in trying to onboard into a new channel or into a new product. But if you actually find out what was the satisfaction or what was the customer experience there at that particular journey point, you will know what exactly needs to be fixed. And then the stakeholders that are responsible for that particular journey point can bring them in. That’s why stakeholder management is very important. And so, okay, guys, this is where we’re having a problem here. We are unable to this customer are unable to get onboarded on our services because of one, two, three things and you’re responsible for it. What are you going to do about it? So it’s good that organizations actually pay attention not just as an activity, but as a strategic role or function for them. Then second and thirdly is social listening. We are all on social media today, but we need to listen intentionally. So it’s not enough for you to say, I have my Facebook account, an Instagram account or a Twitter account, but it’s what are you doing with it? The data? Are you listening to your customers’ conversations? Right.
Ubong: What are their preferences? What are they saying? You know, you’ll be able to mine, right? What they’re saying that you could see their sentiments, whether positive, negative or neutral, and then you can deep dive on it. Now, some organizations today have listening across different channels, so they are listening to what customers are saying about, for instance, in the banking sector, they are mobile. I mean, their mobile apps, right? They are their branch services. They also listen across maybe their online banking, their loans, products that enable you to know exactly what you should do. So by listening into their conversations, they could be having connections with their friends. But in as much as they tag you, you should listen. You should get to find out what’s going on. Also customer journey mapping they need to pay attention to because by that you really understand and know exactly where the problem lies. What you need to change. You know, organisations also need to be able to know that while we are talking about agile environments, agile enterprises, same thing with customer experience, same thing with big banks. They need to get on the agile process to be able to iterate as things are changing. So you could add this journey, you may need to change something, change it immediately, right? See the way how you’re going to improve because that customer is looking forward to getting what he or she is looking for in another bank.
Marcell: Alex, you’ve been quite quiet there. I don’t know if you had any follow-up questions.
Alex: I had a question but you had another question as well. Yeah, I had one question. Like there is this notion in banking that is different in other industries that one customer may start banking with one bank. They stay with them for life. Do you think that is changing over the years?
Ubong: Yes, it is. So the question should ask yourself right now is how many accounts do you have?
Marcell: One personally.
Ubong: Two? Very rare before you see anyone have only one account.
Marcell: Yeah, I do. That’s probably because I’m young. I haven’t really gotten to that stage.
Ubong: Okay, let’s see what happens in the next 1 or 2 years, you know? So banks should be a one-stop shop for customers. That is, should be the purpose and the aim of banks. Today we’re also offering other businesses like pensions insurance. Right. So that I can start my banking transaction with you. I need to pay my insurance. There’s a sister company there that I can do all those interactions with. But if you stop transacting for 2 or 3 weeks, there’s something wrong that means you’re doing it elsewhere. So inactivity is not long. It’s not for those people because they are using data and they’re intentional about their customers. They want to know what’s going on that comes to that customer understanding that we were talking about earlier on. Marcell. And so that means you use data, right, to measure your customer health. This person should be carrying out transactions at least once in the week or once in two weeks. But in three weeks, nothing is happening. Do you know about it? So you need to leverage on your data analytics to be able to see, okay, what is the activity level of my customers, especially your customers that are giving you high lifetime value?
Marcell: Before taking this conversation to the next stage and discussing the elusive idea of CX maturity, we must first understand what drives competence. Because to be mature, you have to be competent first. Now let’s hear how Ubong approaches the five core competencies, which you can also find as a link in the description below.
Ubong: Bruce Temkin. He’s actually an expert, a subject matter expert, so I respect him a lot. So I want to look at it from his own perspective. One is purposeful leadership, right? That means the leadership must operate with a clear and consistent value. Right. And he also defines it as the five Ps of leadership in leading customers. You have to be passionate. You have to be persistent, right? Has to be that level of that. I am invested in it personally invested in this thing. You know, as a leader, right. You have to be persistent. You’re constantly saying the same thing at every point in time. Also, you have to be propelling leadership has to be propelling to make sure others are interested in what you’re doing. There is a buy-in from your staff and from your customers and also purposeful and then positive. That’s number one, purposeful leadership. That’s one of the competencies. Then number two is compelling brand value. What does your brand say? What are you doing to deliver on your brand promises to your customers? What are your promises to your customers? You know, that’s why it’s advice that every organization should have their customer. Apart from your vision and your mission statements, you should also be able to have what is your customer experience vision. What are your brand values? What are your service promises now? So this promises you have to be able to make sure that you make the promises right. And it’s very clear.
Ubong: Let the customers know this is what you’re going to offer, right? This is how you’re going to offer it. And then you have to ensure that those promises are embraced by your staff. They have to embrace that promise. So they have to own that promise. It’s not enough for management to for you to I mean, write out and put out your mission statement values and core values and all that. Someone has to take it and go to market with it. Right. And then you have to be intentional about keeping those promises. Now, number three, we have employee engagement. You cannot serve today’s customers without your employees being engaged, rightly engaged. So that means that they have to align with the goals of the organization. They have to They are the ones that are going to manifest what you have promised to do, the ones to actually execute it for you. So that means you need to ensure that they are well-informed, right? They are well inspired by what you said you’re going to do now is going to be also are they properly instructed? Are they properly educated? Right. Are they well informed to know exactly what to do and how to serve the customers? And then in sanctification, are they being incentivized? Are they being rewarded? Don’t just make decisions right from management. You need to involve the staff because they have they’re the ones carrying out the day-to-day interactions with your customers.
Ubong: Now, the last but not the least, customer connectedness. You need to connect with your customers. And how are you doing this? You need to infuse your customer insights right across the organization. Everyone in the organization, every department. You have to infuse your customers’ information, your customer data, your findings, and the insights you’re getting across the organization continuously listening and acting on your customer feedback. It also involves focusing on your customer journey. They have to be clear. They have to be distinct. They have to be seamless. Everybody knows what is going to happen. Everybody has their role and their and their responsibilities. Now, that’s just the principles as defined by Bruce Temkin. But also you could see other people talking about things like customer understanding, right? Those are the also competencies for management design thinking. And I’ve talked about employee engagement. All right. And also innovation. You have to be intentional about innovation. From the data you’re getting from your customer interaction, you need to constantly innovate. And also governance and culture. You have to have a properly defined governance. Right? Structure, there has to be able your culture, how are we doing things here? What are we known for? You could see some big brands today. They are known for certain things, right? That means they have been consistent. They have been intentional about maintaining those things. Those are things that actually sets you apart as a leader in customer experience.
Marcell: So what actually is maturity? What do we mean by that? Can it really be defined and categorized as a ladder companies can climb? How can you tell which stage of maturity your customer experience is at? Does it all even matter, or should we just be striving to deliver some form of glorified customer service?
Ubong: So likewise in life, you know, you know, we were talking about earlier on about when you were boy, you were you know, you became a man and all this so that so likewise in CX we have those levels of maturity, right? Those are intentional steps and levels that organizations are in their journey to serve their customers. Basically, you will see there are about five levels, but recently there’s one that has been added. So before now there was one that was not that was called ignore. That means they were not interested. That’s the recently added one. To ignore means that they are not interested in it, right? You know, they are not, they don’t have a focus on it. As a matter of fact, you know, they’re not even though they said they are a customer, you’ll hear them say, I am a customer-centric organization, but they are not focused on it. Now, you could also have the Explore stage, right? That means they recognize that customer experience is important. Maybe to just take a look at it. They just exploring the benefits. All right.
Ubong: The principles of customer experience. Then you also have the mobilize. Mobilize means that you’ve set up a team, a manager, someone to be responsible for your customer experience strategy. And that also enables you to develop the customer experience, roadmap your strategies and how you want to do first. Now there’s Align. Aligning means that the metrics have been integrated into your operations and customer experience metrics are actually part of their performance management. It’s not only the business metrics alone. So you could see departments being appraised, staff being appraised on their customer satisfaction levels and the likelihood for customers to recommend. So but when you infuse that right into your performance management, everybody knows that whatever I’m doing, even if I’m in admin, is going to affect the customer, it’s going to affect our bottom line and it’s going to affect the bonus I’m going to get at the end of the day. And the last but not the least, is Embedded. Embedded means that you’re no longer looking at, oh, this department is involved with customer experience, everybody. Is responsible for customer experience.
Marcell: I guess that’s the dream.
Ubong: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And now it’s good to know that today only about only 4% of organizations are in the fifth and sixth level or what you would normally say, the fourth and the fifth level. Then you will have about 42% in the second and third levels. So that means there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. There are a lot of challenges there, but it has to be an intentional approach. And just so what you don’t measure, you don’t improve. So you need to measure to know where you are. And these principles have outlined what you need to do. There’s a roadmap. You have to assess yourself, right? You have to gain clarity. And there’s a systematic approach for you to move that. It’s just about you being intentional about getting to know your customers, serving them right, and also positioning yourself to be a market leader.
Alex: What do you think the risks are of neglecting CX maturity within your, let’s say, strategy?
Ubong: I would say it’s just with you. Number one is decreasing customer satisfaction. If customers if you’re not doing if you’re not, if you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re not intentional about growing. Also, you’re going to talk about your decrease in employee engagement, right? You’re going to have also limited customer insights because you’re not intentional about it. There’s a level that you should be gaming, I mean, mining information and data from your customer activity. That’s also a level of boldness, a level of that’s a certain level of that you’re attending in your maturity process that you should be doing that. If you’re not doing that, you’re not getting those data, how would you innovate? How would you be able to serve your customers if you’re not doing some certain things? And also you’re going to have decreased revenue and profit if you have a decrease in your customer satisfaction and then your customer base is dropping, that means it’s going to affect how much money you’re going to make, right? And also your cost is going to go high. So the risk actually outweighs the benefits.
Alex: Do you think the current banking environment has CX maturity as a large enough priority?
Ubong: Yeah, I would say in recent years the Nigerian banks have actually recognized the importance of customer experience. If you look around all the banks, they have had customer experience departments. Some have had it into divisions. Now, some are even like a directory and then focus on customer experience. They are doing this because they want to maintain and retain the market share. The challenge is doing it right despite the progress made by these banks today. Right. They still have ample opportunity for improvement. I think it’s also for the banks today to make sure that the intention to improving their digital capabilities, everything has gone digital. They have to make sure that they look at their infrastructure, their platforms and the ecosystem has changed. So you need to be able to make the appropriate investment in making sure that you are able to serve your customers the same way other sectors are doing the same thing. The expressions are changing every day. What I needed yesterday might be different and how I wanted might be different today. Before now you could even buy something you’re going to wait for some days before it arrives.
Ubong: You could order something today and it gets delivered within 24 hours. So customers want the same thing in the banking space. How do they want to be served? People don’t want to walk into the banking hall to do certain transactions. How have you optimized those things? Have you digitalized those services? Do you even know why you should digitize them? Right. What are you focusing on? The space is evolving as a matter of fact. It’s just that they have to be committed, right? We need to stop paying lip service to customer experience instead of making it to be glorified customer service. It should actually be intentional. There are certain things you need to do. We talk about the CX maturity, so the things you need to do at each level where you are today. First thing is know where you are and then what are the gaps that you need to address because that differentiates you from your competitors and that’s what makes you be a leader in the market and then makes you to get more customers. More customers means more money.
Marcell: And like you said, obviously with Neobanks and these digital banks coming along as well, it’s this new breed of competition that you have to adapt to as well. So it all forces you to keep up and that kind of.
Ubong: Absolutely. And those new guys are very nimble. They’re very agile now. It’s difficult. It’s a challenge for not difficult. It’s a challenge for these bigger ones because they have to go through different processes. Every this one has to check this check, this check that I guess.
Alex: These neobanks have also been built stripped of the silos that have been plaguing the traditional banks.
Ubong: Yeah, sure, sure. And that’s one of the things that enables so many people look at CX. As I said, no is actually a unifier. So it brings everybody together because it’s not about my work, it’s about the customer. So if everybody is okay, do what I’m doing today in admin, in administration, in marketing, in technology, in support is because of that customer out there. They will be intentional and they will be a clear difference in your operations and also in your bottom line.
Marcell: Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the podcast and if you did, why not subscribe to our YouTube channel for access to full-length videos and YouTube shorts? You can also like share and comment on the episode to keep the conversation going. If you want to join our growing community of thought leaders, head over to LinkedIn and follow us at Insider podcast to stay updated. Thanks again. I’ve been Marcell and I’ll see you in two weeks, but for now, enjoy our Rapid Fire questions. And by the way, this podcast has been brought to you by ACF Technologies, the Global Leaders in Customer Experience Management Solutions. For my first question. Would you ever go skydiving?
Ubong: I think I might attempt. Yeah, attempt it if all the factors are right. The safety factors. I’m assured that they are all in place. Yeah. All right.
Marcell: So if you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
Ubong: Helping people.
Marcell: I guess you’re in the right position.
Ubong: Just so you know. So whatever I’m doing. So I love nurturing, building and empowering people, empowering businesses every time I wanted this. How do I help you to be a better person? How do I help you to be a better organization? How do I help you to realize your purpose and to fulfil your purpose? That’s what I love doing.
Marcell: That’s great. Do you prefer films or TV shows?
Ubong: Both. Yeah. Depends on the context. Yeah.
Marcell: Yeah. What do you have, like a favourite film or show?
Ubong: Sometimes I’m sci-fi and then also a bit of documentary. Okay. You know, I also love to know why things are being done the way are being done, you know? So I love to really. So, my wife will tell you that when we’re watching movies she loves to fast forward. Whereas I want to understand the details right in each of the scenes. Right. The preceding scene, what led to this. So I’m asking in case you’re asking me tomorrow, what happened here, I would give you, you know, continuous improvement. Why? Why, why, why, why? You know.
Alex: Okay. Yeah, great.
Marcell: And then my final question. Do you have any, like, funny stories about a really awful customer experience that you had?
Ubong: Okay. Yes. So there’s this airline, right? I’m not going to mention the name.
Alex: Right, of course.
Ubong: So there is one that has been like the main line in a particular location, but they came to disrupt, right, the monopoly. Okay. So if you’re coming to disrupt The monopoly, you should be much better than them, right? So this is this a line that the earliest flight was about, I think into the city was about 10 a.m. and then they now came in and said they were flying at 7 a.m. So I’m here. I have a meeting at 9:00. It’s just a one hour flight. And your take off time happens to be 7:10. And I’m here. Remember that day I woke up quite early. I was on the check-in counter an hour before the flight time. I see the queue. So at the end of the day, the flight was meant to take off at seven. We took off at eight. And then.
Marcell: What? You missed the meeting?
Ubong: Well, I was lucky enough. I just got in when the meeting was just about to get started, which is wrong, which is not right. You know, like, you know, we have to make sure that you get in early on time, get yourself prepared. Right. Relax and get settled. So I think all businesses should if you want to go into something, get something, you want to make a change, do it properly, be intentional about it, disrupt properly…
Marcell: Be mature,
Ubong: Absolutely! I love it.