2. You are useful to your customers even when there’s little to no profit in it.
Yes. Customers in Africa can be high risk. High risk customers tend to be negative on some or all three key aspects of loyalty – timely payment (how a customer pays for goods/services); behavior (what a customer plans to do with the goods/services); and attitude (how they feel about working with your company).
It may be counterintuitive to engage high risk customers with “free” services or products. But it can be worth it in the long run. You don’t need to make money on every customer interaction, you simply need to be useful to the customer on every interaction.
A friend noted to me that he had walked into some electronics repair shop because his laptop was making a strange sound each time he lowered the screen to turn it off. After he shared the problem with a service rep at the shop, the rep said that he believed one of the battery cover screws was loose. The rep tightened the screw which fixed the sound immediately. Service cost: nothing! Where is my friend likely to go FIRST when he needs electronics service? That electronics repair shop. How many people do you think he’s likely to share this story with? Several… including me (and now you).
