A charity with customers?
This week is National Customer Service Week. You might wonder what National Customer Service week has to do with a charity working in Africa, but as many of you already know – we don’t believe in giving solar lights away. We sell them through our social enterprise SunnyMoney, at a full but fair market price.
We place great emphasis on customer experience, researching the impact of our work so we can continue to evolve and learn from those who are best placed to teach.
Why do we sell?
Because building a market for solar products provides jobs and business opportunities that will lead to a more sustainable solution and enable solar to reach more people, faster. Not only that, it puts power in the hands of people as customers rather than as helpless recipients of aid. Customers will only buy what they value and that means that we have to work hard to listen to what they want.
SunnyMoney has to provide excellent products and services as one faulty solar light could jeopardise people’s trust and prevent further solar light distribution. Ultimately this would affect our ability to get these life-changing solar lights into hands and homes. We are committed to learn from our customers and to provide the best products and services available – we know that the best way to improve the lives of those currently dependent on kerosene for lighting is to listen to what they have to say.
What our customers have to say
So this week we will be celebrating National Customer Service week by featuring comments and stories from our solar light customers. Starting with Joseph Kirui who tells us why he decided to buy a solar light:
Joseph now saves 40 Kenyan Shillings per week, which he spends on his children’s school fees and on buying food for the family.
To learn more stay tuned to our website next week when we will be publishing our first Impact Report and shining a light on Sunrise Kat, our fabulous Social Impact and Research Manager. Kat will be able to tell you more about what, how, why and who we speak to when measuring the impact of our work.