Ekine: There is Need to Bring Consumer Regulation Close to the Grassroots

The Chief Executive Officer of BrandXchange/convener of Consumers Value Awards, Akonte Ekine, in this interview with Raheem Akingbolu speaks on consumer rights, regulation and the recent decision by his organisation to reward brands and businesses that focus on creating the best experience for the customer.

What’s your take about Nigerian consumers?

The consumer is same everywhere, all he or she wants is simple quality service based on brand promise and the sad part is that the promise makers are not keeping the promises and you even see situation where people bring known bad products to the market on assuming that the consumer has no choice, he will buy simply due to price discount. Look at the telecommunications sector, with a series of data plans that assures you a duration of usage on a number of days and yet the one month or one day plan will not even stay up to the stated period and when you want to complain you will be left with machines to attend to you. You will not even get good calls through but you will be charged, more like we don’t have a choice. The consumer is a hard working honest individual who deserves to enjoy the services paid for. Look at even within government service providers, you beg for service, pay for poor service because you are left with no alternative. The consumer deserves more in this country and we just want to be one of those contributing to that conversation that will encourage service providers to improve. 

What spurred you to introduce Consumers Value Awards which your team debuted last year?

As reputation management student, we know that what sincere brands appreciate is as simple as consumer feedback through different platforms and also because we have done series of work speaking from the brands perspective to consumers, we felt we should see the possibility of flipping the coin such that the consumers should be the one doing the talking that could brings some form of validity to the promises of brands. And let us say the truth, we are consumers and we all care about our plights but the challenge is that we seem to have been wired to leave things to some elements, otherwise why do we look for services that we think should equal our taste and interest?

Also there are many other people contributing greatly to the consumer narratives, it is sometimes more work in the background than for the media to see, but we are all involved in ensuring that we have a better consumer experience in the country.

You have held the first edition, how has the feedback been?

First, we thank God for the courage and opportunity to hold that first edition, I will use this platform to thank Mr. Adedayo Ojo for his leadership. Its feedback is very encouraging from the remarks of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, Nigeria Broadcasting Commission, National Food and Drug Control Agency and Nigeria Communications Commission for attending and commending the initiative. That we got the 200-capacity venue filled is good feedback and I thank all those that attended the event and those that took time to vote.

We have also been advised to improve on the categories and as well as duration of voting and those are some of the new things introduced like now, we have opened the portal for nomination for a period of one month and two weeks and we went all out for 13 episodes talking about the portal for nomination on radio and online.

What are the challenges you were confronted with at the initial stage and how did you sumount them?

Life is about challenges and so this one is not different. The first subject is acceptability, we had people asking that question why are you doing this and we made it very simple, we are trying to contribute to a body of knowledge that will enable us all to have a better experience.

Credibility issue came up and thus we designed the website for everyone to see the voting results as it happens and we did a monthly report of voting based on the voting pattern.

I think we can say that some people have seen the sincerity of purpose in our effort to contribute to the consumer narrative in the country and we are not there yet but we do know that our work might inspire some companies and even regulators to do better.

Now, you are setting the stage for the next edition, are there new things Nigeria consumers and brand owners should look towards?

Oh yes, the market is very dynamic and we do hope that we can also evolve with the market. The first thing is that we are looking at regulators involved in consumer management based on industry and we would like to call them out. You my flight experience we found out later that if we had also carried along Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, the story might be different. How many consumers are aware of the various regulations that affect them daily? So, we plan to bring as much as possible all regulators together on this day for short conversation, celebration and reward for a good job and therefore putting them on the spot for better service offering. We have seen some State governors playing good roles in ensuring consumer rights experience through legislation and more and we think we should call them out for good as news makers that will make more people know that no matter the size of business the consumer must get a great experience.

From state level to individual, we are seeing better actions and it is only appropriate to use these individuals as well to create the right conversation through recognition and commendations.

Brand owners should look forward to an exciting time at the event but prior to then, they should visit the website and vote, encouraging the market people to vote for them as well. It is called if you are proud of your brand to see consumers validate the efficacy of the brands with a Badge of Honour from the consumer.

Awards institutions in Nigeria have been condemned as nothing but mere jamboree and money-making ventures, what is your take about this and what differentiate yours from the pack?

I think we should commend those that have attempted to create a series of conversations around awards. Reason is that they generate engagements on various subjects whether it is accepted by the party involved or not. It will always initiate intellectual engagement to a degree and a subject of relevance will emanate, so it is all about perspective. I am not in a position to talk about jamboree or money making because as we speak, we are indebted to media houses on last edition and so I am not competent to say anything till we make that money, however, ours is a very different case. First, we are building a sample population like no other and our results are very visible for the public. Last edition Dangote Sugar got about 56% vote, and right at the venue the representative from Dangote Sugar said that figure is close to what we have. I mean what can be more gladdening that one person could easily validate your numbers without prompting. So, our major difference here is that we are driven by empirical data that can be used by interested brands. This conversation is even about the consumer satisfaction index in the market place. We are helping brands and regulators to do what is expected of them, look at the Federal Competition and Consumer Act 2022. We are only a contributor to big national conversation.      

What are the criteria for entry and assessment?

First is that all brands are eligible for this. It is first the responsibility of a consumer to nominate brands based on experience and these took place for exactly 6 weeks. After that nomination of brands, we are compiling based on categories and then we will open the portal for voting from 1st May and for clear three months we expect brands to encourage consumers to vote. We are also on our part announcing voting is ongoing through various platforms such as yours.

This is purely a classic case of the consumer being the judge and jury. It is consumer that is supporting a brand claim with a vote and we are only collating and publishing

Coming to regulation, how can you describe the operations of      regulatory authorities in Nigeria, for instance FCCPC? 

Let us see these regulators too as consumers so they are as involved as all of us but we are all in a challenging environment and I think we will get better over time. There was a time when we didn’t even have a place to go on consumer issues, then now we have a commission and many other agencies. We should commend the regulators across board, they are trying, the NCAA is already reviewing the issue around refund on delayed flight and flight cancellation among others. I think they are working but not much is open to the public. SON is doing some great work in ensuring safety on the highway through training and monitoring of sellers of Tyers among other things while NAFDAC is constantly holding workshops to educate stakeholders and the list is endless so we should commend them for the various jobs and expect more from them.

What other things do you think the Government can do to further strengthen consumer rights?

The government is trying, but we should bring it closer to the people. Every local government should have a consumer rights office responsible to address relevant issues. See the Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency is a classic case of bringing it closer to the people. There should be more of such at state and regional level.

Then, brands and corporate organizations should have a standard feedback channel that should give a minimum 24 hours to issues of consumers in relation to service offerings.