Safaricom:Why Customer Care is no longer a department

Ask Lucille Aveva about the Customer Care Department at Safaricom, and she corrects you immediately: “We no longer have a department.”

Instead of one department that is charged with catering to the needs of the customer, everyone at the company is tasked with ensuring that the customer is taken care of, says the Customer Obsession Director at Safaricom.

This is supplemented with what she calls ‘touch points’, which are essentially the specific areas where customers can head to when they have issues – the contact centre, where they can serve themselves or talk to an agent, Safaricom shops, M-PESA agents and dealers, web selfcare as well as Zuri, the 24/7 chatbot available across various web and social media channels.

Lucille stepped into her role in May 2021 as the company adjusted its mission towards being a purpose-led technology company by 2025.

She is tasked with streamlining efforts toward continuously adding value to the experience of Safaricom customers.

Drawing from her 20 years of work experience across various sectors, Lucille has ensured that customer service, now called “Customer Obsession” is not just the work of one department but the organization as a whole.

Why customer obsession? Lucille believes “that’s where truly successful, transformational organisations are.”

Watch the video to learn more about how Safaricom is focused on being a customer-obsessed, purpose-led company.