Making sense of Telkom Kenya’s market failures

A lot has been written about the troubles at Telkom Kenya, majority owned by Orange Group of France, but not from a customer experience point of view. Late last year, we moved our home and office from Nairobi to Laikipia County, North-West of Mount Kenya, and set up our information design and market research office in Nanyuki. I wanted dedicated office telephone lines so looked up the Orange / Telkom Kenya website mid-year, several months before the move; on the website, there were clearly defined service and product offerings and a simple web form to lodge my request which I completed and submitted.

The derelict Orange / Telkom Kenya building in Nanyuki, Laikipia County (photo by author)

I received an email response after a week. Unintentionally, the person who responded included a long email thread originating from the initial request. Apparently, my original enquiry, which plainly stated what I wanted – a post-paid wireless telephone line for an office in Nanyuki – had instigated an internal skirmish that revolved around which business region Nanyuki was in and who, therefore, should handle this business opportunity.

The internal email exchanges were hilarious to read but betrayed the lack of clarity, market knowledge and decisiveness at Telkom Kenya. The tussle started, encouragingly, with a volunteer: “Let me follow up from Nakuru.” This was promptly smothered by someone else who considered this an encroachment: “Laikipia falls under my region” followed by the apparent referee in this matter: “unless I am mad or confused, Nanyuki is under who exactly?” followed by a tail-between-the-legs moment from the volunteer: “I guess Laikipia is quite large…” and finally “Laikipia is my area!” from the one who had finally been tasked with following up my enquiry.

This internal tiff having been settled thus, the beneficiary emailed me a quotation on a plain Microsoft Word document which stated how much the sim-cards and telephone sets would cost and how much the post-paid deposit would be. I called to ask if this was an official quote from Telkom Kenya since there was no branding, address or named source on the document. I was told to pop into the Nanyuki office if I wanted an official quote. The telephone sets, however, were not available so no progress could be made.

I re-visited the Orange / Telkom Kenya website again in May 2014 and resubmitted my request. In the meantime, I had migrated my Safaricom post-paid modem data line to voice and inserted the sim-card into an old mobile handset which now served as the office telephone as I awaited Telkom Kenya to come through. The response this time was without incident and I was assured that someone would get back to me soon. The next day, another person called and began the conversation by asking what I wanted to which I responded in complete exasperation: don’t you people speak to each other? Don’t you read the enquiries before making the calls? What exactly do you want to know beyond what I have submitted for you to establish what I need?

Despite the Orange / Telkom Kenya web form being immensely simple to complete and covering the basic information to complete a sale, they have not closed this one, one year after the initial enquiry. My experience tells me I am not alone. At Telkom Kenya, making a wireless sim-card sale and supplying a desktop telephone set is considered a rather complex manoeuvre, demanding exhaustive internal deliberation and repeated customer inquisition. Any wonder customer numbers are dwindling and usage of their telephone services is shrinking? Since they still have people calling and running around but are not completing sales, any wonder they are not profitable?

Despite the pervasive mobile phone, desktop phones still have a place in business and Telkom Kenya has a reliable wireless technology. What is lacking is the kamikaze-like zeal of the street vendors who sell car and home accessories, DVDs and other knick-knacks on many African streets. Perhaps the knowledge that, with no sales, there will be no money for food, rent, school fees and other important needs drives these sellers. At Telkom Kenya, there appears to be no connection between effort and reward, the legacy of being a former state-owned entity. The evidence that this culture pervades in Telkom Kenya years after the buy-out by Orange demonstrates the latter's failure to convert its employee’s attitude from a desk-bound, civil service mentality to a street-smart, commercial-savvy mind-set.