For some Safaricom home internet customers, getting a problem fixed has become almost as frustrating as the outage itself. A service that is meant to provide reliable internet can suddenly stop working, leaving customers to spend hours calling customer care without getting a clear solution.
One customer recently found herself in that situation after her home WiFi completely stopped working.
She spent more than a day trying to reach Safaricom for help, making repeated calls while the call centre kept her waiting for more than five minutes at a time. Despite the effort, the problem was not resolved and no technician came to her home to restore the connection.
Safaricom later explained that the outage had been caused by a fibre cut in the area and that its teams were working to fix the problem. A fibre cut can happen and may be beyond the immediate control of the company.
However, the frustration for customers comes from what happens after the service goes down.
For someone working from home, an internet outage can mean missed meetings, delayed assignments and lost working hours. Students who depend on the internet for online lessons can also be affected.
Small businesses that use the connection to communicate with customers, process payments or manage their operations may suffer financial losses when the service remains unavailable.
The bigger concern is the customer service experience. Customers who have already lost their internet connection are often forced to spend more time trying to get information about when the problem will be fixed.
Instead of receiving regular updates, some resort to social media to attract the company’s attention and get a response.
This raises questions about what customers should expect when they pay their monthly bills. Technical problems are part of running a large communications network, but effective customer care should remain available when those problems occur.
A customer may understand that a fibre line needs to be repaired, but they should not have to spend hours chasing the company for basic information.
There are also complaints from customers about slow responses to technical problems and delays in getting technicians to their homes. Some say their cases are recorded and described as being investigated, only for them to wait much longer without a clear resolution.
Such experiences can quickly turn a technical problem into a customer service problem.
Safaricom has grown into one of Kenya’s biggest communications companies, offering mobile services, mobile money, data and home internet. Its size means that millions of customers depend on its systems every day.
That position also creates a responsibility to respond quickly when services fail.
The company cannot prevent every fibre cut, network fault or technical problem.
What it can control is how it communicates with affected customers and how quickly it responds to complaints.
A customer facing an outage should not have to repeatedly call, wait on the line and then turn to social media simply to know what is happening.
For a company with such a large customer base, repeated complaints about service interruptions and poor support can damage trust.
Customers may tolerate an occasional outage if they receive clear communication and see quick action. What becomes difficult to accept is being left without information while the monthly bill continues to arrive on time.
Safaricom therefore faces a simple challenge. It needs to make its customer care more responsive, improve communication during outages and ensure that technical teams respond within reasonable timelines.
