By Ulf Björnholm , FORCV Colunmist in Praia, Environment & Sustainable Development Specialist for the Swedish Government, and Blogger

Blog: A CAPE VERDE BLOG: Big thoughts from a small island
Link: bjornholm-ottosson.blogspot.com

Being temporarily back in Sweden for holidays since end of June, some striking differences between my native country and my new temporary permanent home country Cape Verde immediately became apparent. I will dwell on two of them.

First: the weather. After eight months without rain in CV, we were greeted in Sweden by the wettest and coldest summer in decades. It started already on the train from Kastrup to Falkenberg, when the rain suddenly started pouring down. And then it continued. And continued. Heavy rainfalls, light rains, showers, drizzles, mists, downpours, sprinkles and thunderstorms – water came down in all forms and shapes. The first new word my two year old toddler learnt in Sweden after the arrival was “blöt” (wet). The word turned out to be more useful he probably could imagine.

Initially, I kind of appreciated the new climate. I guess that most people value some degree of variation in their lives, also when it comes to weather. However, as the rain continued to come down, day by day and week by week, I started to miss the ever shining Cape Verdean sun. In particular, I missed the outdoor living I had became so used to in Praia – to play tennis whenever you want, to go for bike rides or hikes at any time, to take a nice swim at will, to invite friends for brunch under a blue sky without any rain checks… This is a real advantage in Cape Verde, and a constant source of discontent in my native country.

It might be hard for a foreigner to understand, but summertime for a Swede is really serious stuff. It is the only time of the year when there is an actual chance of some descent long-lasting sun and in Sweden, so many Swedes tend to spend most of the rest of the year building up a lot hope for a nice and warm summer. The anticipation is so high, that the disappointment deriving from a cold and wet summer – like this one – is a serious problem and a real cause for depression, leading to desperate ticket purchases for flights to the south for those who can afford it.

Someone said that without its wet, dark and cold climate, Sweden would be heaven on earth. One could possibly say the same about CV, without its droughts. But then, no place is perfect.

The second difference that I imminently noticed when coming back to Sweden is of a quite different kind: It has to do with the level of service that you get when approaching various institutions and functions in society. There are no doubt many exceptions in both countries on this point, but the general impression is still very salient to me.

Let me explain further. In Sweden, the general shopkeeper, civil servant or waitress that you meet in everyday life will most likely be helpful, well trained, kind and service-minded. Wherever you go – to Ikea, a pharmacy, a local grocery store, a specialist bike shop or, say, a ticket booth, you will generally be happy with the service and feel well informed and content when you leave. If you call and leave a message on an answering machine, someone will call you back, mostly within a day or two. If you send an email, be it to a company or to a government institution, you will get a response.

There is a mutual advantage here; happy customers will undoubtedly be inclined to buy more, which in turn will make the shopkeeper happier.

Unfortunately, my experience is that the general service standard in Cape Verde is quite different from what I am used to in Sweden. When going shopping in Praia, the staff that you meet will normally not only be uniformed about the products they offer, but often act uninterested, or even bothered, when you approach them with a specific question or a request. I almost get the impression that they would prefer not selling anything to you rather than having to talk to you.

Just before leaving for holidays, I went to buy a gas stove in Praia. One small but very crucial part was missing in the package, namely the piece to connect the stove to a gas hose. I made it clear to the employee that I would buy the whole package if only he could help me find this little thingy – probably easily and cheaply found in one of the nearby hardware stores. But he made no effort what so ever to help me out. Rather, he tried to convince me to buy the stove without this crucial part. So I left, frustrated, and went to look for a stove somewhere else.

On a different occasion I wanted to buy a parasol (a very useful item in CV). Contrary to what you could expect, it proved hard to find one, and when I finally did, the shop wanted to sell only the umbrella thing, without the stand. Naturally, I explained to them that a parasol without a stand would not be of much use to me. No sign of sympathy. No help. No deal.

Another day I was looking for a washing machine. The shopkeeper seemed strangely unfamiliar with his products and gave us very poor advice. When we nevertheless decided to buy the product he recommended it turned out he actually didn’t have it, nor could he have it ordered. I haven’t returned to that shop since.

The story is the same on many restaurants – some waiters seem almost disturbed when you give your order, ask for the check or wonder why the food doesn’t arrive. On many occasions, I have literally been forced to wait for hours for my food or the check, becoming more and more frustrated as the time passes. The result: I rarely go out to eat in Praia anymore, especially if I have any kind of time constraints.

Moreover, companies don’t usually call back when you leave messages and they don’t respond to email messages. And if there is some kind of disagreement between the buyer and the seller, things might turn quite sour. The term “the customer is always right” seems to be unheard of in Cape Verde. The major CV airline is notorious in rescheduling or cancelling flights without even informing the customers. My previous blog “My relationship with Toyota” (

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) is another case in point (even if that little adventure actually finally turned out to have a happy ending).

OK. At this point I realize that I might sound like a spoiled foreigner, or perhaps like an ignorant neo-colonialist. So don’t get me wrong. I really like Cape Verde and its people. And in fact, I can’t be totally of the mark, since the CV government itself has identified this issue as one of the main obstacles to tourism development. The main culprit seems to be a general lack of schooled and skilled labour, limited language skills, and possibly lack of serious competition due to the country’s limited size. Maybe there are other explanations as well (anyone?).

In any case, I am not requesting all Cape Verdean shopkeepers to have a master’s degree in customer relations, only that they treat their customers with a little more respect, decency and effectiveness. Just common sense, really. Customers don’t want to feel uniformed, neglected or even insulted when they go to a shop or a restaurant. If so, they will leave empty-handed, or choose not to come back, to the disadvantage of all involved. Customers want to feel welcome and special. If not, they will choose another shop – or, in the case of a tourist, another country.

Sweden and Cape Verde are, in many ways, quite different, with their respective pros and cons. Maybe that‘s why I can appreciate – and sometimes be frustrated with – them both. Maybe there is some truth to the old saying that opposites attract.

Of course, there are many other differences between the two countries. And also similarities, perhaps. But that will have to be a theme for another blog.

Cape Verde Gets a Failing Grade on Customer Service
Service in the private sector and Government agencies is unacceptable


Português: Cabo Verde recebe uma nota negativa no Serviço ao Cliente
O serviço no setor privado e nas agências de governo é inaceitável

Para ler este tópico em Português, copie este link e cole-o no seu browser: forcv.forumup.org/viewtopic.php?t=732&mforum=forcv

salah Mateus wrote:

... Well it seems that the umbrella and the person selling the washing machine is not in the majority. ...Manu Salah

Salah, I understand your desire to not hear bad news about Cape Verde or your automatic reaction when a foreigner point out the negative aspects of our country but I sadly have to say that I agree with Ulf 200%. I also want to help make things better. However, one way to improve things is to be honest with the reality - ka nu tapa sol ku pinera -, to make a diagnosis of the real problems, and figure out practical solutions for them. I don't think that living in the state of denial all the time will make things better. On the contrary, accepting the lethargic status quo just make things worst. Additionally, I have had enough of us blaming everything onto others and not taking personal responsibility in our actions, in this case blaming the colonialism and making the excuses that we just have had 32 years as an independent country. Cape Verde is catching up to the developed world when it comes to crime, violence, and other bad things but when it comes to catching up in good things we always find an excuse for that. Most of the problems of the society in Cape Verde reside on the attitude of the people, not on lack of resources. You’ll understand what I mean when you finish reading this post. So if we only adopt the attitude of the developed world, we would be far better today.

Going back to your comments, on the contrary of what you have said, "…the umbrella and the person selling the washing machine IS in the majority..." How so?
I return from a 3 weeks vacation in Cape Verde a month ago and was close to died from a heart attack on my attempts to get regular things done is there. Specifically, the customer service in the government agencies and private sector in CV is overwhelmingly awful in 95% of the places you go, at least in the island of Santiago, where I stayed. Most of Government employees that works directly with the public and workers on the private industry seems to have no clue about what they should be doing, there’s misinformation and wrong information everywhere, and worse, there's such a bad attitude among people in the service industry that you wonder why you should go there to bring them your money when they don't seem to care about it at all. To agree with Mr. Gilles Filiatreault, the new TACV CEO and reformer who’s having much trouble to save the company from bankruptcy mostly due to the employees’ attitude towards abrupt but necessary changes, what’s threatening TACV, and I’d go ahead to say, the rest of the country is “laxism” – complacency or lack of sense of urgency for necessary changes (www.asemana.cv/PDF/a-semana-809.pdf). I know I'm making strong statements here but before you judge me, read about the experience I had in dealing with the two sectors during my stay in Praia. By the way, all these stories can be confirmed by my dad and my wife who were with me running like chickens with heads cut off daily for two weeks in a row to try to get simple things done:

1. To start, I spent 3 hours or sometimes more in Caixa Economica and Banco Comercial de Atlântico (the two major commercial banks- where the service is supposed to be way better than in Government agencies) waiting in line to do simple transactions like depositing money or trying to open an immigrant account days after days. In some case when my turn arrived, the customer service representative would tell me, "Oh, this issue or this document is taking care in another department, or somewhere else.” Goddammit! Could any specific instructions be set upfront or previously on their website so I don't have to waste 3 hours waiting for nothing?

2. I spent about 3 days to change my regular bank account to an immigrant one (an account that supposedly gives some benefits to immigrants who want to invest in Cape Verde) in Caixa Economica – where the customer service representative made me fill the paperwork twice because she gave me the wrong forms the first time. Then, I returned the following week to confirm that the account was opened and working fine, which should have happened at least within the first 3 days. She had the guts to ask me if I had the copies of all my documents – passport, immigrant declaration, green card, etc – because nobody knew where the documents I originally submitted were. In fact, she told me that they were lost. “Are you kidding me?!” I said. “How can you let my information get lost like that? If it was in US, I could sue that bank for putting my identity at risk of theft or misuse.” But after getting mad and complaining to see nothing getting solved, I decided to go with the system. If you can’t beat them, join them! Luckily, I had made copies of all the documents I submitted and gave it to her again. Then, she insisted that it would take a week for the conversion to go through. Fortunately, I knew a friend/ex-neighbor that works there, and he told me that according to their policy, that transaction shouldn’t take longer than 3 days. He sent me back to the supervisor of that department that ordered the lady that lost my documents to get it done. I also filled the papers to do the online banking so I can check on the status of things and have the option to do transactions between my Bank of America and Caixa Economica account. The same lady insisted that they were going to send me the PIN number or password via email. It’s been more than a month and I haven’t received any email from Caixa Economica yet. I learned here in the US that on the contrary of the information she gave me, I was supposed to go to that bank agency in person to get the PIN number. What do I do now? Buy another ticket to CV to go and get my PIN number? How much Dollar is Caixa Economica loosing from me weekly because someone there has no clue about what she’s doing? What if I want to invest in CV? Is this the incentive and service you get to go and invest in CV?

3. On another case, my father wanted to transfer a house so I can renovate it. For 2 weeks in a row, from 9 am to 3 pm (there went a considerable part of my vacation) I tried to take care of the paperwork to get that transfer done. I went to Cartório (The Registry), and a real state company to take care of what was needed. Every time I went to there I got different information about the process depending on the staff I spoke to. It was so frustrated to get any papers rolling there. While on there, I overheard a Danish investor telling his Cape Verdean partner in English: “There were 5 of us who came here to invest. 3 of them gave up and returned to Denmark after so many bureaucracy and bad service – every time they came here to get things done, the staff would ask them for another document. However, I’m not giving up. I’ll come back here a million times if necessary until I get what I want.” Like the patient Danish gentleman, I didn’t give up going to Cartório, in part because, despite of the bad customer service there and the slowness of the institution, there was a funny supervisor there – Helder (physically handicapped) – who seems to be the only one there who understand what customer service is. When he notices that people are mad, he just cracks the funniest jokes and calm them down, and then go on to take care of you. “So, Helder, if you’re reading this post, I want to tell you a sincere OBRIGADU DI FUNDU DI NHA KURASON. To the Prime Minister Jose Mara Neves I suggest if you want to save our country from loosing tourist, immigrants, and investor money due to poor customer service, order 10 thousand clones of Helder and spread it all over government agencies. Or if you can’t afford the cost of cloning, open a customer service training program, put Helder in charge of it and make it mandatory for every government employee or else.”

5. Going back to house paperwork: when everything seems to finally go okay due to the good service of Helder, I went to another agency (I decided not disclose its name) to get the rest of the documents to complete the transaction. It’s 10 a.m. and the person who was supposed to sign the document wasn’t there yet. “Come back at 12 and it will be ready,” I was told. I went back at 12 o’clock and the person still hadn’t show up to work yet. I Called back at 1 p.m. – nada; called back at 3 p.m. nada. I went there the next day and, on the contrary of what I was told, the document wasn’t ready yet and the person who was supposed to do it had just left for a 45 day vacation. He will only return by mid September and then he will work on this case. It’s August 3rd and I’m returning to US in August 7th. Now what do you want me to do? “We are sorry but you’ll have to wait until then. Ok?!” Just a hypothesis that I wouldn’t want to see happening: What if this person die? What if he never returns back to work for one reason or another? Shouldn’t be there someone to replaces him when he’s absent?

6. Another disappointing story: I bought 2 round trip boat tickets ($8300 CV Escudos each) to go to Baía das Gatas Festival in the island of São Vicente with my wife in one of the new boat from Moura Company. I was so excited that for the 1st time in my life I was going to that island that I always wanted to go. But three days before the trip I received a call that the trip was canceled. The excuse I got was that the crew was sick. “Are you joking?!” However, since Praia is the world capital of “fofocas” (gossips) and nothing stay hidden for long there, I heard from many of other trusted sources, including a journalist, that Moura Company didn’t provide the boat crew (from Guadalupe) the conditions they had agree to, and so the whole crew took off to Guadalupe without notice. Therefore, 900 people stayed stuck in Praia because of that. Did anybody care about the amount of money Moura Company lost from that? From what I noticed, it was just like what happens to the electricity power in Praia. It goes off twice or three times a day but nobody gives a damn or complains about it. You just have to get used to it, my friends told me.

7. I’m not going to talk about the customer service at Finanças (The Treasury Department) for 1 specific reason: my cousin and a friend who work there saved me from going to the whole bureaucracy and headache in getting things done in that institution. However, I will say this: I saw an old man passing out and falling on the floor in front of me because he had been stand in line there for a long time waiting for his turn. Again my wife, dad and even my cousin that works that can confirm this story.

8. The customer service I received and saw in restaurants in exception of Bar Bitcha in Bairro (thanks to my friend Breu: he knows the business he’s in) and Café Sofia in Platô, and few other places is disheartening. You go to most of the restaurants there, you sit for a long time before an unfriendly server come to you, while chewing gun or looking somewhere else, looking like she just graduated from Al-Qaeda training camp: mad at the whole world and with an attitude like she/he hates everybody and everything. She/ he goes back and you have to wait for ages for you food or drinks again. By them, you become like him/ her: you hate everything and has lost your appetite. But when you remember that you are in Cape Verde where a kurason di barata (cockroach heart= “extreme patience”) is needed to save your mental sanity, you put your acquired Americanism/ developed country expectations aside and dress up your island relax attitude vest. Actually that’s the only way you can enjoy your vacation in Praia.

The bad news is that customer and public service like those described above is widespread throughout most government agencies and private businesses like restaurants, stores, and banks. I dealt with a many public service offices and business while there and saw the same attitude and inefficiency all across the spectrum. But what I found worse is that amid all these chaos, incompetence, negligence and poor service, there is little if any sense of responsibility, urgency or at least an apologetic attitude. In most part, nobody cared. And as my friends told me, if you complain you become a target and victim of the system because one way or another you have to deal with that structure again if you ever want anything done.

Indeed, I’m aware that because of what I’ve written here, next time I go to Cape Verde or call Caixa Economica to get my PIN, I will be targeted and purposely turn down. Still, that doesn’t keep me for exercising my citizen rights and constructively criticized what’s wrong, and demand better from a country that I've given so much to get nearly nothing in return. Also, if Cape Verde has become such a vindictive country where only the connected ones and friends of ‘Gentis Grandis’ get what they want, and the rest of the people are supposed to shut up and suck down the unacceptable, I’m glad I live in the United States of America where I get what I pay for and as a taxpayer I have the right to open my big mouth and demand what the government is supposed to provide. However, if the Prime Minister José Maria Neves and the rest of the CV Government still believe in attracting foreign and immigrant investments, and provide the necessary tools in the public sector – and hopefully the private sector cooperates too – to create a business and people friend system, I still hold my desire and dream to make a valuable investment in the country where I was born and contribute to its development.

Alberto Pina Your point is well taken.

I have tried on many occasions but the reply has been the same.
There is an old saying ignorance is bliss. Meaning they don't know.

What it is, is what it is, what more can be said.

I agree but agains I don't have the power to change any thing in The Republic of Cabo Verde unless I go to live there What i find in any country is money is the power and what ever is the politics of the hour.

There is something to be said about knowing and not knowing.

It is one thing to have a revolution and defeat the enemy,but it becomes a different game when you have a parliament and people voting for there agenda or for there party and for control. Every industrial or economic endeavor has a dollar$$$ sign behind it.

Many people in 3rd world countries are going thru the same problems,I am not trying to justify bad manners nor am I making any excuses for Cabo Verde or any other countries in the 3rd world.

For any one to have a beterr understanding I will suggest the we read (THE COLONIZER AND THE COLONIZED BY ALBERT MEMMI)

It would seem to me in order to overcome some of the problems it will take a lot of patients and time. hat is not what we want to hear but that is the way it is. It makes no difference who is in power that is the way the cookie crumbles.

When we think about these issues the one that complain the most are those who are educated and are of the upper class (Petite bourgeoisie)

The poorest of the poor are only concerned about food and the next meal,not about paper work or who runs the office about electricity or soap,or washing machines or gas stove. Ther reality is something different.

Liberation and freedom brings many new problems,democracy is an added problem unitli the people know how to work it and use it.

Young intellectuals have their own ax to grind

However,all that,which seems so important in the eyes of an outside observer,and which is so perhaps for the general welfare of the people,is basically secondary to the colonized.

It never cease to amaze me the difference of opinion between the people who live near the mountain top in stone houses or straw huts,who never owned land or anything for that matter see things very differently.

I will not take a back seat to any one who is so quick to forget and can't understand the inconsistency between the have and the have nots.

I know one thing for sure if you want to get some thing done in Cabo Verde you should be prepared to stay their for long time or have money to go often.

For the sake of not having to write about this subject again I agree there are problems to be resolved. I hope it goes well for you and others.

So customer service gets an F for ratings. Ok.

How will it be changed to make it better? What must be done?
Who among you will go there to change it? Only one suggestion is that folk go to the Minister of Internal Affairs see if that helps

With Cabo Verde Love.

Manu Salah

Quote:

Cabo Verde is no exception when it comes to poor customer service. People from all over the "third world" complain about service people back home lacking good customer service skills. Even in a place like New York city, an advanced city, when you go to a restaurant staffed by "third world" people, the customer service tends to be poor. I say this from numerous personal experiences.
In any and all case, what we as customers, clientes, can hope for is that as globalization gains further ground in Cabo Verde, first class customer service will take hold as an imperative, and as a result, the servers who act like they're doing the customer a favor will be replaced by a more first rate server who better grasps the concept that the customer is really King and Queen and that s/he is always right.

did you ever visit greece, portugal, or france, the costumer service is very bad and also disrespectfull, these country although they are not in the third world deserve a H...

I guess that explains why America is the best. Here, customer service is great. The restaurants that don't do well in this regard go out of business eventually. Hopefully one day that will be the case in Cabo Verde.

I just heard from some friends the other day that recently a Cape Verdean from Brockton went back home with a huge investment project. But they give him such a hard time when he tried to deal with goverment agencies there that he couldn't get anything done at all. He ended up coming back frustrated. Nevertheless, he didn't want to give up his project. So, he decided to hire a white man (American) as consultant and sent him back to Cape Verde with the same project on hands to see if he would have better results. Guess what happened? The white gentleman received V.I.P. treatment in dealing with the folks there, I was told, and got the project approved and all the paperwork the Cape Verdean immigrant wasn't able to get. And after that he got the ball roling in no time. Now, what does this say about the mentality of the people in Cape Verdean specially those in "Função Pública" (The Government and its agencies) towards it's own people? Why do Portuguese, Italian, British and other investors get the red carpet for them and all the doors opened and, on the other hand, they make things harder for Cape Verdean immigrants who want to invest in their motherland?

Keeping less than stellar customer service and inattention to schedules in mind, I always advise friends who consider travelling to CV that
"You need a month to spend two weeks in Cape Verde"

I have followed this discussion with great interest. The nightmare that Alberto Pina describes in is even worse than I thought.

I agree with Salah that my "complaints" are luxury in comparison with the everyday struggle that the poor have to deal with. There sad ting, however is that bad service will unfortunately hit the poor (who don't have the time or the means to complain) even worse than the well-off. What about those who don't have the time to wait, who have no margins to deal with uniformed or unhelpful customer representatives, who never will understand the unduly complicated bureaucracy? Secondly, there is no way to fight poverty effectively unless customer service, both in the private and the public sector, is working effectively. This is true in the sense of attracting foreign investors in particular, but also, naturally, for exile Cape Verdeans as well as permanent residents wanting to invest and create employment.

It won't do to blame all problems on colonization (which doesn’t mean that I want to play down the impact of this sad phenomena) or poverty alone. Nor is it helpful to pinpoint other countries renown for bad customer service. As someone said out, most of these problems have to do with attitude, not resources. Cape Verde is a fantastic country in so many ways, and it does not have to be a victim of the past. And the fact that other contries have the same, or even worse, problems, doesn't help Cape Verde much.

Also many rich countries, including Sweden, have once been very poor (in the beginning of the 1900, millions of Swedes fled to the USA due to poverty and famine). One - perhaps even the main - reason that Sweden is now a wealth country is, I believe, that the private and public customer service has improved tremendously over the years (by the way, Sweden never "profited" from colonizing other countries). In order for the economy to flourish, you need the right conditions, including in particular effective customer services.

Someone hoped that globalisation in itself will "solve" ore improve the situation in Cape Verde. In fact, I think it is the opposite - in order to stimulate positive aspects of globalisation, customer service needs to improve significantly. Otherwise, I fear that Cape Verde will face the same fate as many other poor nations, especially in Africa: economic marginalisation, sidestepped from the world economy.

Cape Verde has a really great opportunity to benefit from globalisation – with the right policies and conditions in place. From my experience, the country is in a better position to do so than many other so called third world countries, thanks to e.g. limited corruption. I only hope that this opportunity will not be lost.

Yes indeed we must do every thing to make it better.
And It will get better. We are slowly moving in the right direction.
There is no excuse for bad manners,it is a matter of education and making those who need to know that you can get more with honey then with vinegar.

Best wishes to all.
Thank you.

Manu Salah

Altair you are so right and it was funny but that is a right on for sure.

Manu Salah