We are oftenly being asked what the typical awamo customer experience is like. Well, here it is.
Please meet Musa Shaban Sseggujja, who is owner & chairman of Kampala Civic Centre Beauticians SACCO in Kampala. Shaban and his Beauticians SACCO is a perfect example of how awamo can help customers to succeed in their business. The concept of Beauticians SACCO is to gain new members from the beautician sector, and to give them access to loans, emergency loans, and savings accounts. In the end it turns out, that Shaban is running a “special purpose” microfinance institution, with a clearly defined client base, and industry sector he serves. What makes his business complicated is that in order to grow his business, Shaban and his staff must visit potential clients in the field, meaning in their individual shops which are distributed among the local community.
When we initially met Shaban, he told us he was struggling with doing everything at the same time: visiting existing clients outside his branch, reaching out to potential new clients from the beauty business, plus managing savings deposits, withdrawals, loan applications and installment repayments at the same time. And yes, when we first introduced awamo 360 to him, he was a bit sceptical about it. “How exactly can “the cloud” be an advantage for me?” or “Why is it I should do business on my smartphone? Is that even an option if I consider myself being a professional business?” – that was the questions Shaban posed to us.
awamo helps MFIs and SACCOs to do more business
We don’t want to bore anyone with the details, but now it’s 6 weeks later, and for 6 weeks Shaban is using awamo’s microfinance management solution. And he is happy: “During the last weeks, I managed to additionaly win 200 clients, and now I have 1,200 clients! I was able to visit potential clients and at the same time I could keep up with business going on in the branch.” he tells us. “You awamo guys save us much time, and I can approve loan applications and other things on-the-go with my smartphone. That is just…you know SOME leaps ahead of how it was before.”
The best thing about this is, that we hear that kind of feedback more and more often, as our solution matures more and more. We have implemented more than 30 additional feature requests of our customers during the last 4 months, and we are continuing in doing so. A big “thank you” goes out to Shaban and other early-stage awamo customers, who trust in us. We won’t let you down 🙂
