The company has increased its outlets for reaching out to customers; acknowledging that almost 50 per cent of them are dissatisfied with its services.

“I came for a petition that dates back to June, concerning a bill of 2006 that is yet to receive a solution. I was informed on October 2, 2010 that it would take 20 days to correct the error on the bill. It has been four years since I’ve been trying to resolve this problem! It’s too long!” complained Guemechie Gabriel. He is one of the many AES SONEL customers whose complaint is quoted in the recent issue of the company’s bi-monthly magazine, AES-SONEL Today.

According to the magazine, such complaints are legion in its public complaints/suggestions registers across the country, all decrying alleged general poor service delivery and the slow pace at which customers’ complaints are handled by the company’s management. “I came to settle my bill for September 2010. I’ve been in the office since 11 am, and as usual, your computers are down. This is very bad to the customer. You could receive payments manually while the computers are down. With all these lapses, the customer still gets penalized for settling bills late!” lamented another customer, Nouje Dika of Deido, Douala; also quoted by the magazine.

Such complaints could soon be a thing of the past, going by recent corporate image and service delivery improvement measures taken by the company. In addition to the public complaints/suggestions registers in cash offices, questionnaires are regularly distributed to customers to fill out. “This is to enable us assess the level of customer satisfaction with our services,” says the magazine. The distribution of the questionnaires began in October 2010 and is said to be going on well. “For some time now, our commercial department has embarked on moves to listen more to customers in order to meet their expectations. The opinion registers are one way of achieving this, and they so far show that almost 50 per cent of customers are dissatisfied with our services,” acknowledges the magazine.

In order to meet these challenges, the company recently started weekly interactive programmes on two radio stations: Radio Equinoxe, Douala and Radio Siantou, Yaounde. Also known as AES-SONEL Today, the one-hour programme provides aggrieved customers the opportunity to ask questions, seek clarifications and receive immediate answers from invited company experts. After each programme, a detailed report is presented to the company’s management for further follow up.

“The programme brings out the often tense relationship between our frontline staff and customers,” admits the magazine. A hotline has also been set up to enable customers present their problems. The numbers are 99 11 99 11, 77 11 77 11 and 33 42 33 33.