Thread by @KathleenNdongmo

Some of us need to learn that planning & preparedness translates into success when it meets chance.

Scenario:

You come to Twitter & tweet your business with pictures & the usual "pls RT, my customer maybe on your TL". The kind people on Twitter proceed to RT you to the moon.

Next thing, you have 5000, 10000, 50000 RTs, hundreds of thousands of replies, and the DM becomes jammed with follow up questions & orders.

You then go back to original tweet to "thread" that "you are thankful but overwhelmed with responses."

You ask responders to "wait" as you will "get round to responding" etc etc.... There is no info on where or how to get said product... Your initial "help my ministry tweet" just opened Pandora's box for you.

You are overwhelmed because you didn't anticipate the power of twitter

And that's how so many of us miss opportunities that could have/should have been ours.

I see it a lot.

Of what good is 50,000 retweets if you cannot translate the amplification into cash?

Why tweet a call to action when you are totally unprepared to meet the action?

It's like some of the small businesses I see (& some I have interacted with) on Instagram.

How customers, frustrated with the business process on an order they have spent money to get are responded to with things like: "we are overwhelmed", "you people don't follow instructions"

"It is not our fault nah, dispatch rider was stuck in traffic", "can you not understand Nigerian factor?", " you are not obliged to buy from us", "we are a startup & still growing" etc

Baffling things that make you wonder where to draw the line.

Who sent you to open a business?

Didn't you know about the "Nigerian factor"? Didn't you know customers will use various methods to reach you? Didn't you know there's traffic in Lagos?

Why make business promises you can't keep? Why include customers in your business process? Why talk to customers derogatorily?

I have seen customers being belittled & dragged in comments because they asked a question that's been answered before or for which information has been provided in the status.

It doesn't matter that it's been answered before, do you, a business owner have to be "abusive"?

And even as it is true that some customers can be a handful, the tenets of customer service mean that they should always be treated with respect. It costs nothing and it is possible.

These days there are businesses who go on personality attacks on the gram, one's like "whoaa!"

If you come out with a product or service, please ensure you have the capacity & wherewithal to handle:

- the demand
- the supply
- the service
- the people
- the process

Entrepreneurship is not "fun". Business is not a bus ride.

If you want success & staying power, get ready.

I write from an entrepreneur's lens. Not just from a customer perspective.

In the last 8 years, I've had to roll up my sleeves, grit my teeth & let my humanity take over. The people buying your product/service are HUMAN.

And if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen

Bonjour, @threadreaderapp - let's get this in one chunk. Unroll s'il vous plait. merci.