Last month, a logo I designed 12 years ago was retired.

I made a better one, then joined the company I made it for. I was fascinated by one thing.

They wanted to offer customer service as software to spur entrepreneurship, drive development and raise service quality standards across Africa.

I couldn’t resist.

To have that size impact we would have to enable customer-facing businesses to scale their customer service delivery at very low cost while maintaining optimal control and in one of the toughest places in the world to do business. Either that’s noble genius or absurd ambition. Either way, I wanted in.

Even the smallest of businesses in advanced countries can and often do offer a high level of professional and endearing service. Across Africa, many small to mid-size businesses have yet to feel the urgency to improve the customer service they offer. Service is often not seen as mission-critical for fast growth.

I’m a big believer in companies with a massive transformative purpose, like a company that wants to organize the world’s information. (Google)

It took a while but we found a way to better explain our vision.

“We believe Africa will be a better place when businesses make their customers happy.”

A statement so simple and obvious you could easily overlook the innovation and scale it would take to begin to have any such impact.

Today’s technologies can enable the free exchange of information for almost frictionless decision-making.

So, why not a company that gives any size business in Africa direct access to its entire market and the best tools to serve every single customer equally well. That’s just about crazy enough to work.

David Coleman
David Coleman is Chief Marketing Officer at Hubtel. He loves to read, hang out with his sons, and swim a few laps every weekend.