You use more muscles to frown than to smile. I am not a writer neither a blogger. I have not done either one before but today it will be my first time.

Wondering what I am talking about? Kindly spend some few minutes to read about my trip to Vodaphone Care4u centre.

It all started last night (11 June 2009) at exactly 7pm I came back to the office to use the internet to complete my project work I was to submit on 12^th June 2009. When I connect my laptop to the office LAN (local area network) to access the internet, the chrome browser gave me "This web page is not available" message. Quickly I enter the ADSL modem's Ip address and log on it. The ADSL was connected but I had no ip address the ISP (internet service provider). I quickly remember that my boss paid for the service about 3months ago so our credit must have run out. I then dialled my ISP on their help line with my cell phone, the call dropped. So I went downstairs and used the landline to call. I was greeted by a very polite gentle man who asked for my ADSL number, after a minute or two of holding he asked me when the last time we paid our bill was, 3 months ago I responded. He informed my we had run out of credit and must pay, assuring me that once I paid at any of the care4u centres our accounts will be debited and the internet service will work instantly. Well I left the office and on my way home I called my boss to inform her. She told me she wanted to pay as she droved around town that day but forgot and asked me to pick up the cheque first thing the next day.

12^th June I got to the office at 9am, my boss had already left the office but left the cheque for the bill. I took it and went straight to the nearest Vodaphone care4u centre. When I got there at 9:30am, went straight the smiling older man who asked of my mission. "I am here to pay for the broadband4u because my boss wants to use the internet now so I hope after I pay it will work instantly". He smiled and told me that maybe it will and asked where I work. I told him it's a school and I teach the kids computer. He wondered how I taught computer in a preschool. I told him I use interactive cartoon-like software to teach kids as young as 2+ the alphabets, numbers, courtesy, and names of the parts of the computer. He had a son who was two and that informed his interest. Remembering why I came there, I gave him my cheque and my phone number. He told the system was slow and will see if I will be lucky. So he tried to pull up the school's account details so debt it with 3months internet service. His phone rang and another customer wanted so help from him, he told the caller the system is down. Well attending back to me, he told me the system is very slow and ask if I was ready to wait. The need for internet access to complete a project work made me agree and sat in front of him waiting patiently for the system to respond.

After an hour of waiting and watching other customers come and go, he told me that the system is still load and he had cancelling an earlier request which had frozen the whole system. He advise me of coming to pay bills early in the morning or late afternoon around 4pm since a lot of customers are online during mid-day (Vodaphone care4u centres opens @ 8:00am). I also asked if they system was locally runned or on the internet, I guess he did not hear my questions or had no answers, so I got none.

Just then another customer came up to him and asked why the internet was soo slow of late and he responded that even their centres were experiencing the same. I wanted to get in involved, but rather thought a business opportunity ( having an ISP in Ghana that is always on and provide customers at a cheetah speed, everywhere in the country, with a very streamlined payment planned and of course, affordable). With a worried smile I told the other customer that I think the SATconnection Vodaphone has, is a very fast one so I think is their distribution to us that creates problem (that's a guess anyway).

A 20 minutes to 11am, another employee of the care4u centre arrived and I was asked to get a manual receipt from her which will be keyed in when the connection stabilizers, dashing my hopes of internet access today. After boot up here pc and ready to serve an elderly woman (who was at the counter before I came) the computer restart it self again. Arriving late, frustrate by the connection and the pc, she asked the elderly woman if she wanted a manual receipt. The elderly woman who was not ready to stand for long agreed but lucky the pc came back on she got a printed receipt. When it was my turn she asked for my ADSL account number but all I knew of head was the telephone line number and asked for a pen to write it on the cheque (she criticised me for not having a pen as a young man). Well she then got angry when I wrote the telephone number and remembered me of the difficult in the accessing billing system and sent back to the man I came from. Well when I got to him he quickly sent me back to the woman telling her to just write a manual receipt and key it in later. With a broad smile of frustration I walked to her and kept accusing of not coming with my account number and cautioning of not to blam her if she keyed it into a wrong account. I then responded, reminding her of spending two hours there, still with a smile and will definitely blog about this. In the end I got a manual receipt and I worsen matters by enquiring if the internet will be back before the day ends. The rest is history.

The main reason why I am blogging this is to create a platform for people to voice /blog their customer experiences in Ghana and also maintain a smile regards of the frustrations they might encounter.

I know other might have encounter worst experiences than I did, write it down and blog about it. (Pls counting my mistakes as a smile you should today)