Clientele’s Latest Ad Tackles Harsh Realities of Business Survival in South Africa’s Service Crisis

Taking on failing municipalities

Clientele’s brand ambassador, Desmond Dube, who still features in many of the executions, made a quite amazing transformation from the funny man he was into a serious, compassionate gent talking about everything from life insurance to the cost of attorneys (for the legal insurance products).

But the latest one from Clientele caught my eye because not only was it a real client testimonial, it spoke accurately of the current, crumbling state of South Africa.

Lee Davidson looks like a normal oke trying to run a normal business in, let’s face it, an abnormal country. He runs a company called Moving Parts tractor Spares in Pietermaritzburg.

As many thousands of people and towns across South Africa get to experience every day, so, too, did Lee get to see crumbling urban infrastructure arrive at his doorstep – in the form of a burst water main which wrecked the sidewalk and entrance to the shop.

Customers battled to get in and out and Lee tried on multiple occasions to get the municipality to fix it, but they ignored him.

At the end of his tether, he called in the lawyers – which he could do, thanks to having a Clientele Legal Business Plan, which covered him for a number of eventualities a small business might face.

Within a week after playing legal hardball, he says to camera, the council had fixed the problem and he could resume normal operations.

A situation like this can probably only be solved these days by going the legal route, because our municipal masters don’t even know how to spell service, never mind actually deliver it.

While the ad is satisfying – who doesn’t love it when a fellow victim of council nonsense comes out on top? – it is also a great pause for thought for small businesses out there. As a call-to-action, the ad advises that Clientele Legal Business covers potentially expensive issues like drawing up of contracts and labour relations.

So, an Orchid to Clientele, yet again for effective advertising. And one to Lee Davidson for telling his council: “Hell No!” If I ever own a tractor, boet, I know where to come for parts.

Talking power while leaving you in the dark

While on the subject of what most metros and towns laughably call “service delivery” – OK, I am excluding you smug people in most towns in the Western Cape – I saw another little municipal waste of ratepayer money the other day … a video for City Power, the entity that supposedly fixes (but probably also causes) our power outages in Joburg.

The video claimed City Power is committed to service and its customers and then went on to deal with how the maintenance it does reduces outages.

However, in the real, perpetual dark world which is the suburbs of Joburg, it is a somewhat different story.

After the supposed expenditure of umpteen millions on upgrading our large sub-station, our outages have got worse. Since mid-February, when I started counting, we have been without power for 190 hours… or more than a week. The latest was a 28-hour stint and we were spared by our small solar power system and gas camping stove. It’s still not a way to live, is it?

The pain came on the back of a bill for R28 000 from City Power – at pain of a threatened cut-off –after they installed a “smart meter” last year and didn’t read it. Now, apparently, a smart meter is not smart enough to relay numbers to a central computer (as we had been led to believe), so you must take pictures of your meter reading and email them.

Those people in the Western Cape, I can hear you sniggering, but I kid you not…

Don’t then, City Power, waste my money on your comrades’ overpaid production company making videos which will enrage rather than inform. Perhaps you could consider spending that money on actually fixing your broken systems.

All in all, for not reading a very angry room and damaging your almost dead brand even further, you get an Onion, City Power.