My opinion of Safaricom is not favorable. I deeply resent giving so much of my money to a company that offers such mediocre service. Their customer care is hapless. It is always a pleasant surprise when their services work as advertised. I’d decamp in an instant but like a bad habit am bound to MJ and his company by a variety of reasons, professional and personal.
During the course of my work and play I make heavy use of some of their services
- Telephony
- SMS
- GSM data
- GPRS
Grief from all the above. Especially the GPRS.
The other day I discovered there is a group of Kenyans that are descended from Spartans. These are the Safaricom Advantage customers, hereafter called the 300. Long suffering yet patient. Doggedly returning again and again to the battlefield that is the Safaricom arena. As a member of this hapless tribe, let me tell you what you are entitled to
- Your own queue. Upon entering any Safaricom office, say Shankardass house, instead of joining the absurdly long queue to the left, join the absurdly long queue to the right
- Your own cashiers. Two. Despite the fact that there are 8 cashier’s desks, Safaricom seem to believe in Newton’s law of conservation of energy, and only two are staffed at any one time.
- One of these cashiers will generally have the temerity to ask you (after you have waited 45 minutes to get to the front of the queue) to LEAVE the queue, join a second queue for the customer care desks to establish your customer number), rejoin the queue for another 30 minutes and then settle your dues. After I was told this the first time there was a lengthy stunned silence from me. “Woman,” I finally said grimly to her, “I shall do no such thing!”
- Rather than toe the line and bill customers based on actual usage, Safaricom’s billing system relies on the position of the sun vis a vis the earth and Mars, the humidity in Papua New Guinea and the texture of chicken feathers. It is a pleasant surprise when what Safaircom claim you owe and what you actually owe are kissing cousins. Last month I checked my balance within the space of five minutes. The first time it said 12,563 and the second – 2,456
- The flying stork that delivers your monthly bills reliably falls ill and absconds from duty. I received my March, April and May bills at the same time.
- Customer care that can be counted on to reliably listen to your litany of problems and then equally reliably be counted on to be unable to do anything about your problem
Tired of wildly fluctuating bills, I was informed of a Safaricom online billing system. I did not expect much of it and it did not disappoint
Let us start with the page to access this facility, shall we?
The terms of service contain some questionable grammar and facts.
e. “System Requirements” means the minimum software specifications that you must have on Any computer that you intend to use to access the Service these are Windows Explorer Ver. 5.5 Or higher version, or Netscape Navigator version 6 or Higher Version, WinZip ver 6.0 or higher Version;
It is news to me, and certainly to Microsoft, that
- There is a Windows Explorer version 5.5
- It can access the Internet
This is windows explorer
For all ye of little faith:
This, on the other hand, is Internet Explorer
But let me not split hairs and progress straight to the meat and potatoes.
Clicking the link to register brings you the following (Click to zoom):
If you look at the red bar, IE is complaining about some certificate error.If you click the shield, you get the following message:
Note the part “this problem may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server”.
This does not seem to be in agreement with the assurance Safaricom made on earlier on:
3) Although we have developed an encrypted environment for the Service, please be advised that the Security and confidentiality of any information going over the Internet and or via email can not be Guaranteed and therefore you accept that we will not be liable to you for any losses, claims and or Damages arising from any breach of security and or confidentiality occurring over email and or over the Internet.
Uh huh
Let us now have a look at the certificate in question, by clicking View Certificates
This dialog says very many things
- Safaricom does not take security seriously. This is a no-no for a company of this size
- There is no guarantee your credentials that you keyed in are going to Safaricom. They could be ending up somewhere in Belarus
- Even the lazy man’s test certificate, that takes all of a few seconds to generate, expired last year
Even after ignoring all this I doggedly rushed forwards with the registration to be ground to a halt by the following error
And yet, somehow, they manage to make 17 billion in profits.
Just imagine if it was an organized, customer focused company delivering quality service!
GROAN OF THE DAY
Man #1: Is PMS post menstrual stress or pre menstrual stress?
Man #2: It doesn’t matter. RUN!!!
Bruce Springsteen – Secret Garden’
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