Monday Field Notes #5: A Morning at KCB
Before I entered KCB that morning, something else caught my attention — the building.
I have always appreciated buildings with character, and this one caught my eye because of its design and distinctive stonework. There was something aesthetically pleasing about the way the structure came together, and for a moment, before I even walked through the door, I found myself admiring the work that had gone into it.
Then I noticed the security guard.
He was standing at the entrance. When he saw me approaching, he smiled, came towards me and said:
“Habari yako?”
That was how my morning at KCB began.
I had gone there carrying a copy of my ID and KRA PIN because I needed to renew my dormant account. I expected a fairly routine banking visit.
Instead, my bank customer service experience gave me several things to think about — from the first greeting at the door, to waiting for a banking system to cooperate, to watching an employee remain composed while dealing with a frustrating technical problem.
My Customer Service Experience Started at the Door
The security guard asked me how I wanted to be helped.
I told him I had come to renew my dormant account.
He didn’t simply point me towards the banking hall. He walked over to the electronic ticket machine, asked for my phone number and helped me get my ticket.
Ticket number one.
He then directed me towards an open space where the service agents were seated.
There was no seat available for me at first, so one of the agents went to get a seat.
That first interaction reminded me of something I wrote in an earlier reflection, Front Desk Customer Service Lessons.
Customer service doesn’t necessarily begin with the person sitting behind the service desk.
Sometimes it begins with the person standing at the door.
And in this case, my first impression of the bank was shaped by someone whose main role was security.
Being Ticket Number One Doesn’t Mean Everything Happens Immediately
It was still morning.
The bank had only a few customers and my ticket showed that I was number one.
One of the agents asked what I wanted and redirected me to another desk.
Another employee began checking my account and asked whether I remembered my account number. He looked it up, but the number he found wasn’t the same as the one I had given him.
Then another employee came in and looked at what was happening.
Eventually, the new employee took his seat and asked me how I wanted to be helped.
I handed over my documents.
And then the waiting began.
When the System Doesn’t Cooperate
The employee was trying to log into the system.
It wasn’t working.
I could hear him muttering in frustration and asking his colleagues for help. Someone directed him on what to do. At one point, I heard him say he would make a call.
I was sitting there browsing my phone.
Fortunately, I wasn’t in a hurry.
And because I have also spent time working behind a desk with an uncooperative system, I understood something about what was happening.
The employee wasn’t simply sitting there doing nothing.
He was trying.
He walked across to another office. He came back. He asked colleagues for help.
Eventually, I heard him say:
“It’s okay now.”
That was when I happened to look at my ticket.
8:48 a.m.
That was the time I had arrived.
The time was now approximately 9:37 a.m.
Almost fifty minutes had passed.
Yet what caught my attention was how controlled the employee had remained throughout the frustration.
The system was giving him trouble, but he wasn’t taking that frustration out on me.
What Customers See During a Delay Matters
This is where my thoughts moved beyond my account renewal.
A customer may be waiting, but they are also watching.
They are watching the employee.
They are listening.
They are trying to understand what is happening.
Research by McKinsey on customer expectations found that customers tend to value not only speed, but also reliability, transparency, communication and the quality of the interaction. Interestingly, the research found that customers can be comfortable with longer wait times when they receive updates and understand why a process is taking longer.
That made sense to me as I sat there.
Was I happy that the process was taking so long?
Not particularly.
But was I sitting there wondering whether anyone was dealing with my issue?
No.
I could see the employee trying.
He was asking colleagues for help.
He was making calls.
He was moving between offices.
He was trying to get the system working.
Sometimes, a customer doesn’t need the problem to disappear immediately.
Sometimes they need to know that someone is working on it.
I Was Watching More Than My Account Renewal
While waiting, I found myself observing the environment around me.
One thing amused me.
The employees were remarkably soft-spoken.
They were communicating with each other, but the volume seemed to remain at a particular level. There was conversation happening without the room becoming noisy.
It made me think about how every organisation has its own atmosphere.
Sometimes we don’t consciously analyse it, but we feel it.
Earlier, I had noticed the architecture of the building.
Then came the greeting at the door.
The ticket machine.
Someone finding me a seat.
The quiet conversations.
The employee trying to solve a technical problem.
The colleague stepping in to help.
All these little things became part of my experience.
Customer care is not one big event.
It is a collection of small moments.
The First Point of Contact Matters
The more I thought about the security guard, the more I appreciated his role in my experience.
He wasn’t the person who renewed my account.
He wasn’t operating the banking system.
He wasn’t the person dealing with my account directly.
Yet he was the first person I interacted with.
He welcomed me.
He found out what I needed.
He helped me get my ticket.
He directed me.
And when I was leaving, he was still there.
He asked me whether I had been helped.
That final question stayed with me.
Because it meant he had not simply seen me enter the building and forgotten about me.
He had noticed my journey.
Customer Care Does Not Stop at the Physical Desk
My experience also reminded me that the customer journey doesn’t end at the service desk.
Today, customers interact with businesses through many different channels.
They walk into branches.
They make phone calls.
They send emails.
They use websites.
They comment on social media.
They send direct messages.
KCB itself provides several customer-service channels beyond its branches, including its contact centre, WhatsApp line and other ways to get in touch through its official Talk to Us page.
Each interaction contributes to how they see the organisation.
I explored this from another angle in Social Media Customer Service.
The channel may change, but the customer remains the same person.
They still want to be heard.
They still want clear information.
They still want someone to help them.
And they still remember how the interaction made them feel.
What My KCB Visit Taught Me About Customer Care
By the time the employee had completed the process, it was around 10:00 a.m.
My visit had taken much longer than I expected.
But I left thinking about several lessons.
First, the first greeting matters.
The security guard didn’t know what I needed when he smiled and said, “Habari yako?” But he welcomed me and immediately tried to find out how he could help.
Second, a delay does not automatically mean poor customer service.
A customer may be willing to wait when they can see that someone is genuinely trying to solve their problem.
Third, technology problems are also customer-care moments.
Systems will fail. Logins will refuse to work. Employees will need help.
The real test is how the employee behaves when those things happen.
Fourth, teamwork is part of customer service.
The employee did not struggle alone. He sought help from colleagues until the problem was resolved.
And finally, the last interaction matters too.
The security guard who welcomed me at the beginning was the same person who asked me whether I had been helped before I left.
That brought the whole experience full circle.
My Lobby Reflection
My bank customer service experience at KCB reminded me that customer care is not always about how quickly a problem is solved.
Sometimes it is about how the customer is treated while the problem is being solved.
It is the person who notices you at the door.
The person who finds you a seat.
The employee who remains composed when the system refuses to cooperate.
The colleague who steps in to help.
The customer who chooses patience because they can see that someone is trying.
And the person at the door who asks one final question before you leave:
“Umehudumiwa?”
These may seem like small moments.
But customer experience is often built from small moments.
And sometimes, those are the moments a customer remembers long after the transaction is over.
This is a personal reflection based on my experience as a customer. It is not intended as a formal review of KCB, but as an observation of the different customer-care moments that shaped my visit.