At Jovita Home Care, Customer Satisfaction Is Our Priority – CEO, Prudence Chiziterem

Jovita Home Care CEO, Ms Prudence Chiziterem, in this exclusive interview with The News Chronicle tells her story of how a soft idea of getting a stream of income during the COVID lockdown turned into a business with exponential growth and is today an employer of labour 

TNC: Good afternoon and thank you for this time to speak with you, we will like to know more about Jovita’s Home care, what you really do and the journey so far?

Prudence: I am Edson Prudence Chiziterem, the CEO of Jovita’s Home care limited. Jovita’s Home care limited is one of the foremost industrial cleaning companies in Abuja and Nigeria as we have a branch in Kano and plan to expand to other parts of the country.

We are into Industrial cleaning, environmental cleaning, property planning and also interlocking designing; but our major service is cleaning. We have environmental certificate and also Corporate affairs commission (CAC) certificate to show for our professionalism.

 

TNC: We know starting and owning a business in Nigeria is not easy because of the nature of the country, the ups and down; so how have you been able to keep the business going?

Prudence: Well, by the Grace of God, I started the business last two years, 2020, we are two years old now. During the COVID-19 lock down, I was looking for what to do and help myself because I was still a student so I came to the conclusion to do something different from what my mates are doing, I started Jovita’s Home care limited with my younger sister.

We started cleaning people’s houses, then in 2021 with the advice of my Uncle, I decided to make an expansion by registering the business with CAC. The first contract we had was in 2020 in Abuja Chambers of Commerce.

Truly it has not been easy for me because I am trying to combine my NYSC service and the business, so it has been really difficult. Sometimes I will leave my place of primary assignment to go and clean at my site. And again, as a young girl, pressure and distractions are some of the challenges we have.

Pricing is also a challenge to us, sometimes after agreeing for a price with quotations and other arrangements, clients still try to play around already agreed prices, but by the grace of God we have been thriving, we have clients like the Abuja chambers of commerce, we are in charge of the fumigation of federal ministry of Justice and many other residential houses in Katampe, Garki and so on.

TNC: So is this something you studied is school or let me say a passion, what is the inspiration behind it?

Prudence: I studied business management in school, I am an administrator by the grace of God. Every business has a passion behind it, so as Jovita’s Home care; the passion and focus is what drives me. I always tell my customers that they shouldn’t pay me if they are not satisfied with what I did. We render our services passionately to satisfy our customers.

TNC: Actually your story is quite inspiring and it has to do with entrepreneurship; do you think entrepreneurship is something anyone can venture into or is it just for some people?

Prudence: Entrepreneurship is something that has to do with passion, as I said, if you don’t have passion for what you do, I do not think you can succeed. As you move on, there will be lot of challenges and if you are not able to hold on to it and focus, you will stumble.

So entrepreneurship is something you have to develop passion and commitment for. For example, if I don’t have passion for what I do, the stress would have made me quit long ago.

TNC: In business, we know it is not always a smooth sailing experience between buyer and seller, sometimes you will meet a customer that will get to your nerves, so how have you been able to manage conflicts between you and customers or you have not ever had that before?

 

Prudence: It is what we call Customer relationship, and in business management there is what we call organisational behaviour, when you are able to understand the behaviour of your customers, you will be able to handle them. There are times when we have conflicts, especially in price, but we just have to overlook and let the customers win; and it has been helping us by people referring others to us. So just let the customer see how good you are.

TNC: Cleaning business in Abuja is becoming competitive, how else, apart from the Customer-centricism, have you been able to maintain your business and also wax strong?

Prudence: There are competitions quite alright but we have a medium, like our website where our customers easily visit and reach out to us, which not all cleaning services in Abuja have. We also do what we call the check and balancing for our clients, we compare and contrast. Publicity and advertisement are also the things that make us stand out. We also do free services for our clients; those are the things that have kept us going.

TNC: So where do you see Jovita in the coming years, like the next five years?

Prudence: In the next five years, as the CEO of Jovita’s Home care limited, I want to create a platform, like a website or an app where cleaning can be done online, that platform will have all cleaners profile for easy accessibility and communication. By the grace of God I hope that things will work out the way I plan it.

 

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