Gold&GapsGold&GapsA Human Experience (HX) Practice
Every experience holds gold and gaps: the value that builds trust and loyalty, and the friction that erodes them. Gold & Gaps helps you close the distance between what you promise and what people feel.
Every Gold & Gaps Verdict reads a real experience through the lens of customer experience and ends with a simple ruling: where's the gold, where are the gaps, and how can we close them?
We exist because the experiences people live are never just transactions. They tell people whether they matter. Gold & Gaps is here for the experiences that carry the most human weight and receive the least care.
We help organisations close the distance between what they promise and what people feel. Through research, advisory, and training, we find the gold and fix the gaps in real experiences, building the trust that earns loyalty and drives growth, and we bring this rigour to where it is needed most and offered least, from everyday businesses to public institutions.
A world where being treated well is the standard, not the privilege, and where the care shown in an experience is the same whether it is bought, or simply deserved. Rooted in Africa, reaching for the world.
We listen with heart. Every decision starts with the human behind the interaction.
We do the right thing, even when no one is watching. Truth guides every insight.
Challenges are just gaps waiting to be filled with gold.
We measure success by the good we create, for customers, teams, and communities.
Iyanuloluwa Osinuga is the founder of Gold & Gaps and a customer experience strategist who has spent over seven years turning how people feel about an organisation into how that organisation performs.
Across financial services, fintech, and technology, in Nigeria and the United States, she has led the work of understanding customers deeply and translating that understanding into measurable change: fewer complaints, lower friction, stronger loyalty. She has built experience programmes, trained the teams that deliver them, and advised leaders on where their experience quietly costs them, and where it could win.
She founded Gold & Gaps on a conviction that shapes everything the practice does:
The cost of a poorly designed experience is not a metric. It is a person.
Training, consulting, or a conversation about the gaps in your customer experience. Reach out.
I had used Heroshe, a prominent cross-border logistics company, 32 times, and not once did I need to follow up. I would place an order on my favourite online stores, send it to their US warehouse in Houston, Texas, pay for shipping, and wait. In about two or three weeks, the item would be in Lagos, sometimes delivered to my doorstep, other times picked up. It was that predictable. That seamless.
Then came shipment 33.
It was supposed to arrive just after the new year, given their usual holiday schedule. The shipment included tech items, headphones, earbuds, and three pairs of computer glasses. I paid for delivery to my house as usual. That was 10 December 2024.
It is now 13 August 2025, eight months later, and the package has vanished. Not with a bang, but with a slow, frustrating fade into a void of unanswered emails and generic updates.
This is not a callout. It is a CX case study on service failure, expectation mismanagement, and how companies lose trust, not necessarily when they make mistakes, but when they respond to those mistakes poorly.
Before now, Heroshe had earned a reputation for consistency. The promise of this cross-border e-commerce and logistics company focused on connecting African businesses and individuals with global markets, particularly the US, UK, and China, was clear: 7 to 14 working days from warehouse to delivery, barring customs delays, and they delivered.
Just over a year ago, on July 23, 2024, when a Reddit user asked if Heroshe was really good, one user replied: “Heroshe is really good. I’ve used them for 2 years now and been able to send stuff to Lagos, Abuja and PH. I don’t trust anyone else.”
Another wrote: “Yeah heroshe is really good, I used them to deliver a product from Amazon to Nigeria, it was cost efficient and fast, plus their customer support is the best”.
Heroshe was more than a logistics company. They served as a bridge to global commerce, especially for small business owners and freelancers looking to bring goods into Nigeria and Ghana at a reasonable cost. They solved a real problem and earned the trust of their customers.
But something happened between then and now that turned that trust into frustration for their customers, and how they handled it is what makes this case important.
If you read the Chairs Medic article, you will know about KPMG’s Six Pillars of Customer Experience Excellence, Integrity, Resolution, Expectations, Time and Effort, Personalisation, and Empathy. Believe it or not, all these pillars matter when running a business, regardless of the scale or the industry.
People are often willing to forgive a delay, a broken product, or even a missed delivery if the company takes responsibility for the issue and handles it with honesty, speed, and care. But when service failure is followed by silence, deflection, or vague messaging, it turns operational issues into existential ones.
Here is how the failure at Heroshe unfolded across six CX pillars:
Heroshe was not honest about their operational challenges. They initially attributed delays to limited cargo flights during the festive season and their holiday schedules. Reasonable, right? Given that I knew from experience to expect longer timelines for December orders.
But this wasn’t about the holidays. Months later, they admitted via a general email that they had underestimated the size of their operational challenges. A failed transition to a new warehouse in Delaware and poor onboarding led to internal backlogs that disrupted operations well before the public knew.
After paying for shipping and delivery to my house as usual, I was later asked to pay a clearance fee, months after the fact. Heroshe had previously promised no hidden charges. Yet, this felt like one.
“...they now collect clearing fee. Which they don't do before. 20 minutes ago, I just paid the clearing fee per item...” — Reddit user
No refund, compensation, or clear alternative. When I offered to have someone pick up the package from the US, they said it was not possible. A few months later, they opened up that same option to other customers, and at this time, my shipment was no longer eligible.
Even now, I have no real idea where the package is. I’ve received multiple general updates regarding shipment of pallets and the clearing of backlogs, but never about my specific package.
“The worst thing is I've been sending them mails to get a rough estimate of when my things will be delivered... But they can't even give an estimate. Common estimate.” — Reddit user
The failure to offer clear pathways to resolution or even acknowledgement remains one of the most damaging aspects of this experience.
Heroshe was built on one key expectation: delivery in two to three weeks. This shipment is now nearly eight months late. Support channels were shut down. The company disabled their live chat and support email and has opened two Gmail accounts. Their Instagram hasn’t been updated since January. Their homepage carries a notice about halting shipments, but even that came late.
Their repeated email line: “We are diligently working to resolve these issues. Shipments are scheduled to depart soon” (paraphrased) did nothing to help customers manage expectations. It only deepened the frustration.
At no point did Heroshe’s communication feel truly empathetic. Messages were templated. Updates were vague. The phrase “please rest assured” appeared too many times and meant nothing. What I needed was someone to say, “This is where your shipment is. This is what went wrong. Here are your options.”
For me, it’s an unfulfilled delivery of a shipment worth over half a million naira. For others, it’s millions worth of debt, and some jail time too.
“Just yesterday, one of us was locked up in a police cell for their inability to deliver a customer’s good that had been paid for”, said a user who recounted his experience to the Foundation of Investigative Journalism.
Empathy is not optional when a service failure has occurred. Especially not when people’s businesses and lives are at stake.
Every message I received felt generic. At no point did Heroshe address my specific situation or acknowledge my long-standing customer history. For someone with 32 successful shipments, there was no tailored response, no escalation, no estimated delivery date, only repeated “unfortunately we are unable…” messages.
It has now been over eight months. In that time, I’ve had to reach out repeatedly, through their website and emails, chasing updates that never came. The emotional and cognitive toll of following up without answers is part of the service cost. And in this case, that cost has been entirely mine to bear.
This is the part most businesses fail to grasp. It doesn't matter how many good experiences a customer has had with you. All it takes is one unresolved failure to undo everything. And when that failure is paired with silence, the relationship and the business collapse. According to Qualtrics research, customers are indeed highly likely to leave a business after a negative experience, and 53% of bad experiences result in customers cutting their spending with a brand. This demonstrates a significant risk for businesses: in 2024, an estimated $3.7 trillion in global sales were at risk due to bad customer experiences.
Service failure is not unique to Heroshe; mistakes happen, and sometimes, they’re “beyond control”. The real question is: what do you do next? This is where service recovery, the process of turning an unhappy customer into a satisfied one comes in. Here is a simple service recovery framework for every business, from solo entrepreneurs to large enterprises.
Even if full recovery is not possible in some cases, a company can still restore dignity by delivering truth and closure.
We’ve created the Gold & Gaps Service Recovery Framework Workbook, a practical, customisable tool to help you turn service failures into moments of trust-building. Download it free and adapt it to your business before the next crisis hits.
Download it free →If you run a business, you owe people more than just the product or service they paid for. You owe them clarity. You owe them closure.
If you can't deliver the service, deliver the truth. If you can't fix the delay, give the customer a resolution timeline. If you can’t give them certainty, at least give them honesty.
Even in failure, a brand can still be trusted, but only if it’s willing to speak, take responsibility, and care about how it's experienced. That’s the difference between a mistake and a meltdown.
And that’s the lesson of shipment 33.
“The app has just two moods: offline or confused.” It’s a joke, but also the reality of most customers. And it highlights a deeper gap: the one between what brands claim to deliver and what customers experience. You’ve seen it too, long queues, crashing apps, support that feels like a test of endurance, all from companies that loudly claim to be “customer-obsessed.”
But customer obsession isn’t a slogan or a mission statement. It’s a mindset, a fundamental way of building, deciding, leading, and serving that starts with the customer and works backwards, every time.
This isn’t just about “good service.” It’s about refusing to let internal complexity or ego become the customer’s burden. It's about driving tangible business growth and securing competitive advantage.
If we want to build brands that earn loyalty, not just attention, we need to change the way we think. Of course, shifting a company's entire mindset isn’t easy. It requires overcoming ingrained departmental silos, leadership complacency, and a natural resistance to change, often rooted in fear of the unknown or disruption to existing comforts.
Addressing this requires transparent communication, actively involving employees in the change process, and demonstrating leadership's unwavering commitment. But what if we had a simple, powerful framework to guide us?
Introducing the ACT CX Framework. A practical guide to help you build a brand customers truly love by focusing on three pillars:
Let's get into it, shall we?
Understanding and continuously validating customer needs and experiences.
Listening to customers isn’t just about collecting feedback forms or scanning through social media complaints. Real listening means interpreting, identifying patterns, surfacing the root causes, and letting those insights shape your priorities and actions. This often involves more than just hearing words; it's about observing behaviour, connecting disparate data points, and asking "why" repeatedly until the core issue emerges. Use sentiment analysis, text analytics, and survey tools to extract deeper insights.
Stop assuming you already know what customers want. Start digging for the truth beneath their words.
Netflix didn’t wait for people to say, “We want to binge-watch.” They watched the data, analysing consumption patterns and engagement metrics, and then designed an experience around it, proving that sometimes, what customers do is more revealing than what they say.
You can’t fix what you’ve never felt. So if you’re serious about customer experience, you need to walk in their shoes regularly. This isn't just a theoretical exercise; it requires a systematic approach to map and evaluate every interaction.
Stop assuming you already know what it feels like to be your customer. Start experiencing your touchpoints, end-to-end, using customer journey mapping tools and user testing methodologies.
At United Bank for Africa (UBA), CX staff and leaders regularly mystery shop UBA branches, walking in the customer’s shoes to experience their service. It’s not just symbolic; they want first-hand context so issues aren’t reduced to metrics. This CX commitment helped move UBA from 14th to 3rd in retail banking and from 6th to 2nd in SME banking (KPMG West Africa, 2024).
Embedding customer experience as a core, effortless standard across the entire organisation.
Customers don’t care how complex your backend is. They care about how easy, fast, and smooth it feels to get what they need. This often means leveraging automation, intuitive UI/UX design principles, and streamlined operational processes.
Stop expecting customers to work around your internal chaos. Start making things effortless.
PiggyVest, one of the most-used fintech apps in Nigeria, is designed for simplicity: clean onboarding, flexible savings options, and a dashboard you can understand at a glance. Most users say they can sign up, start saving, or withdraw within minutes, and the experience feels intuitive. The brands that win are the ones that remove effort. Every second saved is a mark of respect for your customer’s time.
If your CX strategy only lives with the CX team, it’s not a strategy; it’s a suggestion. Customer experience must live everywhere.
Stop treating CX like a side project. Start making it a shared standard across the business.
At Zappos, agents are empowered to go off-script, take their time, and do what’s right. One famously spent 10 hours on a call, and it wasn’t seen as a waste, but a win.
Customers don’t care about your internal structure, they just want solutions.
Fostering a culture where customer-centricity is a continuous, leadership-driven imperative.
If your leadership team isn’t obsessed with customers, your teams won’t be either. Culture follows example, not slogans.
Stop assuming CX is “owned” by a manager or team. Start making it a leadership priority, driven by regular CX performance reviews and clear executive oversight of customer metrics.
At Amazon, every meeting could include an empty chair, representing the customer’s voice. It wasn’t performative. It was a provocation: “What would they say about this?”
The best brands know that needs and expectations evolve constantly. That’s why they don’t rest on what worked last year.
Stop thinking of CX as a project with an end. Start seeing it as a living system.
IrokoTV went from licensing Nollywood films on YouTube to launching its platform, then producing original content. Jumia moved from selling phones online to becoming Africa’s leading e-commerce and logistics platform. Flutterwave started with payments, then expanded into global commerce tools like Send and Store. Not because it was easy, but because the customers kept evolving.
Don’t aim for a perfect experience. Aim for a better one every week. What will you fix by Friday?
Customer obsession isn’t a philosophy. It’s a discipline. One built on action, iteration, and empathy. Businesses that prioritise CX outperform their peers in revenue, loyalty, and growth. If you don’t make life easier for your customers, someone else will, and your customers will notice.
After waiting over two decades, I finally boarded a train in Nigeria on April 29, 2025. I’d heard glowing accounts about the revived Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC): affordable fares, efficient timing, serene cabins. When the opportunity came to travel from Lagos to Ibadan, I was genuinely excited. This would be the calm, modern alternative to chaotic road travel.
And to be fair, it was mostly calm.
The Lagos station was impressively orderly. The waiting area was clean, spacious, and secure. No crowd pushing. No unnecessary noise. Pre-boarding was swift. The train departed on time. Business class offered wide seats, working air conditioning, and consistent onboard announcements. First class? Even better, reclinable seats that one could turn around, serenity achieved.
But beneath the surface of that calm ride, I encountered enough digital friction and service inconsistencies to frustrate even the most patient traveller. This activated my Customer Experience (CX) instincts.
I tried to book my ticket online.
The NRC booking portal required National Identification Number (NIN) verification, a reasonable security feature in theory. But in practice, it failed multiple times without explanation. No helpful error messages. No retry guidance. No human fallback.
Eventually, a friend I travelled with helped me complete the booking. Not because they knew something I didn’t, but because we kept trying different workarounds until something finally worked. Did I mention that the ticket wasn’t booked in my name? You’d agree that this defeats the entire purpose of a NIN verification.
I assumed it was a one-off glitch. It wasn’t.
At the Chief Obafemi Awolowo Train Station at Moniya, Ibadan, we attempted to buy a return ticket in person, expecting the analogue process to be smoother. There was no queue. And yet, we spent over 50 minutes with the staff due to the same NIN verification issue. Some staff were polite but lacked the knowledge to resolve the issue. No one could confidently explain what was wrong, and no one had a solution, except ‘let's try another NIN’.
Worse still, there was no customer service desk, helpline, or QR code to scan for help. I lost count of how many times I said, ‘This is not a good user experience’, and began to wonder: How does a public transport corporation with N900 million invested in digital transformation not have a working support system?
Back on the train, the ambience delivered: wide seats, smooth ride, cold air, maybe a little too cold…until nature called.
The restroom had been used but not flushed. I sighed and cleaned it myself with the sanitiser spray I had. When I wanted to flush, I scanned every surface for a button, but nothing obvious was found. Eventually, I found it after I almost peed my pants.
Why was there no simple sign? Despite onboard announcements reminding passengers to keep restrooms clean, there were no adequate visual cues. A bold sticker labelled ‘FLUSH’ would’ve made all the difference.
To be honest, I’ve been the average Nigerian for most of my life, ranting about almost everything, and it’s exhausting. So I decided that I would no longer complain about inconsistencies in experiences, that would just make me look like a bitter aunty. I’d rather channel my energy into making things better, in my little way, regardless of my societal standing.
That’s why after my trip, I did what I do best to ensure my experience wasn’t just anecdotal: wearing my CX hat, I researched the NRC experience, especially the digital touchpoints, mapped the customer journey, benchmarked it with the best globally, and uncovered the gaps.
I wanted to know what people were saying, so I went through online articles and videos, and found out that the digital ticket booking service was not only available on the website but also on mobile applications, Breeze-NRC for Android OS and NRC LITS ticket Booking App for iOS. Of course, I was excited to get some insights, so I checked the App Store for ratings and reviews.
User reviews for the NRC LITS Ticket Booking App on iOS revealed an alarming average rating of 1.7 out of 5 stars, from 40 ratings at the time of writing. The extreme dissatisfaction is encapsulated by one user's comment labelling the iOS app as ‘An App that belongs in the trash’.
I then checked the Google Play Store to see if this sentiment would be mirrored; there were over 12,000 reviews, so I scraped 500 reviews as my sample data, 200 Most Relevant, with no date filters, and 300 Newest; the oldest review in this category was from 17th February 2024. Combining the newest reviews with the most relevant, the total period covered was January 2021 to May 2025.
I conducted a sentiment analysis on the reviews by performing a keyword-based tagging using a custom REGEX formula, validated it manually to correct false positives/negatives and missed tags, and here’s what I found:
To get a clearer picture of the full experience, I mapped it using a simple Customer Journey Map (CJM), a tool we use in CX to visualise how people move through a service, where they struggle, and what they feel emotionally or experientially at each stage, because it’s never just about the ride itself, but every interaction before, during, and after.
In NRC’s case, the journey started long before I boarded the train, and it didn’t end when I got off. In CX, great design isn’t about flashy tech; it’s about how well systems anticipate needs, solve problems fast, and make people feel cared for at every step.
While my experience with NRC provided unique insights, the challenges I encountered are not isolated. Globally, customer experience has become the primary battleground for businesses, and its impact on an organisation's bottom line is undeniable.
For the NRC, and indeed for any service provider in Nigeria, understanding and intentionally designing for the customer journey isn't just about good service; it's about building trust, ensuring long-term sustainability, and capturing the immense value that satisfied, loyal customers bring.
So, what does great CX look like? I examined several globally respected metro systems, including Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, Singapore, and Taipei.
But the one that stood out wasn’t the biggest or the flashiest, it was Singapore’s MRT (Mass Rapid Transit). Why? Because it’s not just operationally efficient, it’s intentionally designed for the customer, from seamless mobile booking to real-time support and feedback loops that actually work, Singapore’s MRT shows what happens when infrastructure and experience grow together.
NRC doesn’t need to replicate Singapore’s MRT overnight. But it can start by asking the same question Singapore did: ‘How do we make every step of the journey feel like it matters?’
There’s a lot to applaud. NRC’s infrastructure is a great start. The trains are modern. The stations are improving. The promise of rail travel in Nigeria is real.
But a good ride isn’t enough. Not anymore.
Today’s passengers expect a good journey, from start to finish. Booking should be seamless. Support should be accessible. Issues should be solved fast. Feedback should be heard. Friction points should be designed out, not worked around.
Based on my experience, research, and mapping, here are a few practical CX fixes that could be implemented with minimal disruption but significant impact.
Improving customer experience doesn’t always require massive new investments. Sometimes, it’s about removing friction, adding clarity, and listening a little better. A good journey is never just about the train, it’s about how the experience makes you feel, from beginning to end.
A few weeks ago, I was on the verge of spending a small fortune on a new ergonomic chair. The hydraulic lift on my old one had stopped working, and I couldn’t adjust the height anymore. But before I gave in to the idea of buying a replacement, I paused. Surely, there had to be a way to repair it?
I asked around: family, friends, and colleagues. The responses were either “No o” or vague promises to “get back to me” that never materialised. You’ve probably been there.
That night, I remembered a business idea my team and I once pitched during a training programme: a platform to help people easily find skilled artisans. We never built it, but if we had, it would’ve solved my problem.
Then I thought, "Wait... can’t I just Google it?"
So I opened Google and typed "office chair repairer near me." A few results came up. The one at the top was a business called Chairs Medic, close to my location, with a 4.9-star rating from over 100 solid reviews. I made a mental note to reach out in the morning.
At 9:40 AM the next day, I sent Chairs Medic a WhatsApp message describing the problem. Abayomi, the founder, had picked up my earlier call but was in a noisy environment and had asked to continue the conversation via chat.
Three minutes later, he replied, asking for photos or a video and my location. I sent them promptly. At 10:05 AM, he responded with a diagnosis and an invoice. "I can come right now if you’re ready," he added.
There was one small hitch: the service listed on the invoice didn’t match what I thought I needed. I pointed it out. He explained, clearly and patiently, that what I had described wasn’t the issue, but he knew what was wrong and what it would take to fix it. I appreciated the clarity. That’s managing expectations, not just giving quotes.
I asked for a discount (because, well... Nigerian instinct). He gave me a small one immediately. At 10:32 AM, he confirmed he’d arrive before noon. And by 11:28 AM, he messaged again: "I’m close."
He showed up on time. He was polite, professional, and prepared. He got to work.
Partway through the repair, he got injured. Not a major injury, but still, the kind of injury that would make most people stop or delay the job. He didn’t. We cleaned the wound, and he carried on without fuss. By 12:18 PM, the job was done.
Exactly three hours later, he messaged me again to thank me for my patronage and request a Google review. I was more than happy to leave one. Because what I had just experienced was not just good service, it was a complete customer experience (CX).
From discovery to resolution, from communication to follow-up, this one-man business delivered an experience that many large organisations with big budgets still struggle to replicate.
So often, we confuse customer experience with customer service. But they’re not the same.
Customer service is a single interaction. Customer experience is the entire journey: how easy it is to find you, how clearly you communicate, how well you keep your promises, and how you make people feel.
Chairs Medic didn’t have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. But he had something more important: digital visibility. He showed up at the top of a Google search, complete with a visible website and contact options. His WhatsApp Business profile had everything I needed to move forward confidently. In today’s market, a digital presence is crucial.
He met expectations when he arrived on time. He exceeded expectations by working through discomfort to finish the job. He respected my time, offered expert guidance, and followed up with gratitude.
After the experience, I reached out to Abayomi to thank him and asked a few questions. His answers were simple, yet profound.
When I asked what drives him, he said:
I have a passion for solving people’s problems. I looked around and saw that many people don’t know chairs can be repaired. I’d see them thrown out with small issues, and I thought, this can be fixed. I want to help people save money.
Abayomi, founder of Chairs MedicEven though he also sells chairs, he regularly encourages potential buyers to try repairs first. That’s not a typical business move. But it’s the kind of integrity that builds trust.
When I asked how he came up with the name "Chairs Medic," he told me:
A medic is a doctor. If we have doctors for humans, why not doctors for chairs?
Abayomi, founder of Chairs MedicThere’s a clarity and intentionality in that thinking, the kind that many brands spend months in strategy rooms trying to find.
When you map the journey using KPMG’s Six Pillars of CX Excellence, Chairs Medic checks every box:
What makes this story even more impressive is that his business naturally reflects many of the practices you'd find in a CX playbook. Without reading the manual, he embodies it.
According to ClearAction's CX Money Metrics Model (as shared by Lynn Hunsaker on LinkedIn), great experiences create value on both sides. So I wondered what we both gained:
That’s what happens when experience becomes the product; the best experiences convert customers into brand advocates, saving your business money on marketing spend.
Every Gold & Gaps story ends with a simple question: Where’s the gold, and where are the gaps?
In this case, the gold is everywhere. From digital visibility to expert delivery, Chairs Medic turned a simple repair job into a full-on masterclass in experience.
And the gaps? Well, they’re not flaws, just signals of what more might be possible.
None of these are urgent fixes. They’re just the kind of enhancements that can evolve a great experience into an unforgettable one, especially as the business grows.
If a solo artisan can deliver this level of experience without a team, a CRM, or formal CX training, what’s stopping the rest of us? Customer experience isn’t about size or tools. It’s about mindset. And the good news? It’s not rocket science.
It’s care. It’s clarity. It’s showing up. In this case, it was also... a repaired chair I sat in to write this.