It was Elder Edward Oyewole, the indefatigable Ọba ní Jésù, who reminded me of an event that happened circa 2003.
It was a management training series, and I was asked to speak about strategies for customer retention in a printing organization.
I was initially taken aback by why they were asking a ‘bloody’ accountant like me to speak about customer retention. Was this a deliberate attempt to rubbish me? Then I remembered what I was taught in professional certification: “accountants are Jacks of all trades and masters of all”; an inversion of the usual saying, and one I still have my reservations about. It came in handy for me back then, reservations and all.
I also remember that I was once a veteran locust bean hawker for my mother. During those years, I had identified two sets of customers. The Àtúnwás were those customers I literally walked into their houses and sold to, whereas the Àwámọs were customers who heard me soliciting sales and patronized me. With me walking the street and echoing Urú ladùn ọbẹ̀ (locust bean gives soup its aroma and taste) in my Ekiti dialect, the Àwámọs helped me to bridge the gap of whatever remained to be sold.
The intuition was mine, formed on those streets. The vocabulary came later. In that training, the two terms were deployed and explained in greater depth than the narrative above, and I recognised in them what I had been doing without a name.
Àtúnwá speaks to customers who are satisfied and, without prompting and without coercion, patronize over and over again. They are customers to whom you are not just selling products and services; they are customers whose needs become a priority to the seller. Customers who value the quality of products or services will choose you over other competitors. During my hawking years, I experienced customers who had people in their proximity selling the same product, but would wait for me to come sell to them.
Àwámọ are not just mere itinerant customers who bought on the go. They represent something deeper than that. These are customers who may find the products or services fairly satisfactory in terms of both quality and pricing, but still feel something is missing, so they consider it not worthwhile to patronize again.
The two are poles rather than a complete taxonomy. Between them sit the dissatisfied customer who stays because leaving costs too much, and the delighted one who would return but has moved beyond reach. Àtúnwá and Àwámọ name the two ends of a range, not every point on it.
My delivery that day was both humorous and very profound. How did I know that? Many participants, after the delivery, asked many thought-provoking questions. Yet it is humbling that someone, after 23 years, will gently remind me of that event in response to a post on my page.
Fortunately, these concepts may not be limited to business alone.
In politics, as it is in business, the relevance of àtúnwá and Àwámọ can hardly be overemphasized. Take, for instance, all those campaigning for various offices in the forthcoming elections, especially those coming for the second time; what category will they fall into, in your estimate, as a voter who is willing to play an active role?
Would it be based on qualitative factors, or on some emotional instinct or bandwagon effect?
Àtúnwá is a motivated customer who is willing to continue patronage, while Àwámọ is a displeased customer who would rather part ways with the seller.
Who are you, out of the two?
The choice between continuity and rejection ultimately belongs neither to politicians nor to political parties. It belongs to citizens, whose verdict is the foundation of democratic legitimacy.
The timeless wisdom embedded in the concepts of Àtúnwá and Àwámọ may be distilled into four simple lines:
Àtúnwá nígbà iṣẹ́ rere,
Àwámọ nígbà ìkùnà.
Láàárín wọn ni agbára àwọn ènìyàn wà;
Níbẹ̀ ni ìtàn ọjọ́ ọ̀la ti bẹ̀rẹ̀.
Renewal comes with good performance,
Withdrawal comes with failure.
Between them resides the power of the people;
There begins the story of tomorrow.
©TheVillageBoy.
(The figure man who loves alphabets)
