Why customers are taking their money where they feel valued
Enterprise
By
Paul Kariuki
| Sep 02, 2026
Agnes Wanjiku was having an event at her home not long ago. To make her 10-year-old daughter look beautiful for the occasion, she took her to a salon for hair styling a day before the big event. The salon is just around the corner, and only one customer was being attended to, meaning her daughter would be the second customer of the day. The waiting bench didn’t have a single customer, and this, to her, was a great relief. After she told the salonist how she wanted her daughter styled, the two bargained and reached a price. She paid and left for the local town to finesse with plans for the next day.
Around noon, she called home asking if her daughter had reported back. The answer was negative. She called the salon and was assured the daughter was being attended to.
As she was leaving town around 3 pm, she again called home; negative feedback. She called the salon, and this time the salonist was evasive. Something didn’t seem to add up.
She checked with the salon upon arrival and found her daughter still on the waiting bench. A different customer was being attended to. Furiously, she demanded answers.
A litany of excuses was advanced, including that some customers had booked for services way ahead, a total contradiction of the earlier version given that her daughter was the second customer of the day.
Unable to stomach more excuses, she demanded a refund and moved to another salon where he daughter was attended to instantly.
Like any angry Kenyan dissatisfied with the poor services, she posted on social media and lamented in a local community group about the treatment she received at the salon. Those who responded shared similar experiences, citing mistreatment as the reason why they kept off businesses that treated them in such a manner.
What she was to learn is her local salonist, of whom her services she had sought for long, saw her daughter as belonging nearby and opted to serve high value clients travelling from outside the estate who sought for salon services. Such customer experience is what drives customers away to seek services in places where they are welcomed and embraced.
“You take your car for servicing, and another person drives in seeking mechanical servicing. The latter is driving the latest model while you’re in a battered version that has seen better days. The mechanic abandons your vehicle and attends to the new customer. What does that tell you? Based on the age of your vehicle, you aren’t seen as a high-potential client,” observes Wycliffe Waihenya, an economist.
Waihenya says the worst is that the mechanic is likely to ask you to leave the “battered” car and pick it up later, as he has “real” work attending to a high-value client.
“In such a situation, I’d opt to leave with my vehicle and look for mechanical services elsewhere,” he says.
Another turnoff, he says, is when a business doesn’t take customers’ complaints seriously. “You bought that product but find that it’s faulty. You take it back either for fixing or replacement, but you’re told that once a client agrees to purchase anything, they did so after confirming it was sound or in best condition and the dealer shouldn’t be held responsible. This will leave an angry customer counting losses,” he notes.
The economist says such customers will give that business negative ratings that are likely to keep away potential customers looking to purchase or seek services from that business. Another reason for a customer to lose customers is quality concerns.
Waihenya says a customer could have become a repeat customer because of the quality services or products offered. But as time goes by, the standards of the product or services begin to deteriorate.
“Why pay high prices for bad quality?” he asks. Customers are likely to perceive the business as chasing profit rather than offering quality services or products. The customer will feel cheated and likely to look for an alternative.
World over, it’s not unusual to hear from time to time that authorities are investigating data breaches where customer details were leaked. Locally, a betting company was in the face of litigation after it was found that it had bought customer details from rogue agents of a service provider. Data breaches might also become a concern to a business, especially when the business trades its customers’ data. Waihenya says this could not only drive the customers away, but also cause litigation for violation of data privacy.
He notes that in these hard economic times, your customer can leave on minor issues like the product price alone. If a product in shop A is selling at Sh900 while it costs Sh750 in shop B, the customer will possibly move to where the product is cheaper,” Waihenya says.
He notes that overpricing is not proof that your product is superior, and don’t be surprised if your customers make a silent decision to buy the product where there is value for their money.