Thursday, August 11, 2011

Service? What service?

What's the problem with customer service — money or the lack of empowerment?

All of us are consumers and some of us are service providers and every consumer is different in her own way. Some of them are constantly teaching us a thing or two while most of us obstinately refuse to learn or change. Having made some dramatic statements that run the risk of sounding pompous, let me cut to the chase and to my own story and see if there is any learning. It started on a Sunday afternoon, which, incidentally, happened to be the third day of the Nottingham Test which was at an interesting stage. At least, it was, when I was watching it at the airport waiting for my flight to be called. England and Bell were just turning it around.

I am sure you are asking me why any sane guy would travel on Sunday evening, particularly on the third day of an important Test match. But then I am a committed executive (!) serving his company and (hopefully) his clients in the bargain and more importantly because I wanted to start a training programme at 9 a.m. the following day. At times my own dedication shocks me!

But less of me and more of my travails as a customer, as I flew into Mumbai on the day that city received the maximum rainfall this year.

King, pauper or in between

As I am a King Club Member, I flew with the “king of good times”. After all, who wants to be a mere passenger when he has the option of being a guest at Mr Mallya's house? The flight was on time, which was great news to a passenger to whom delayed flights are as common as Praveen Kumar's altercations with umpires, who are reluctant to raise their fingers to fervent and frantic appeals. But that was later. Before that, I settled into my seat ready to watch a third-rate Hindi movie as has been my habit for several months now. I kept pressing every button in the seat and kept looking anxiously at the screen as a teenager might at the bill when he takes his girlfriend to an expensive restaurant. There was no light at the end of the television screen and there was neither a C-grade movie nor a news channel which might have the score at the bottom of the screen. I almost lost it.

But then I remembered I was on good behaviour (which my family might not believe). I have these bouts of geniality, which, sadly though, are not all that frequent but come to the rescue of service providers. So I politely asked the stewardess what the problem was. She smiled sweetly. Sometimes I wonder how airline stewardesses can smile after pouring scalding hot coffee on your thigh! While she had done nothing as exciting or as hot, she said politely that the entertainment system was not working.

Of course, while there was a glossy brochure in the pouch which listed all the programmes and which is one of the reasons why I travel by Kingfisher, the reality was that the entertainment was not working. While mechanical failures are a fact of life, human failures are a little more difficult to stomach.

I wish, I only wish someone had made an announcement or better still made an apology for the entertainment not working. Is that too much to ask for? Do guests have a say, or is all this talk of treating passengers as guests a mere line?

Ian Bell has a good time


Whether I was having a good time or not, Bell was having a great time as Indians were treating him to long hops outside the off stump and full tosses on the leg stump. He was being truly treated as a guest in the Indian dressing room. Well, soon the batsman was thinking of scones and tea and trooped off for tea even before the umpires called for the break.

The Indians woke up and pulled off the bails and the dozing Bell suddenly realised that the party was over. Soon the Indians had a couple of guests in their dressing room as they tiredly sipped their tea. The English captain and coach promptly made their appearance. After all, mental disintegration is complete when the opposition team is not allowed to have its tea in peace, right? Anyway, they asked Dhoni to reconsider the appeal and Dhoni, perhaps recalling what his ancestors were regularly doing till 1947, agreed, albeit reluctantly.

I had missed all that though I was being flooded with Blackberry messengers and text messages. I went to my hotel, keen to catch up.

Who wants TV; radio is the medium of today


Our hosts had put us up in a hotel called VITS. I had never heard of that hotel, but trusted the judgment of our hosts. I was pleasantly surprised to note that it was from the same group as Orchid, a hotel I had stayed in several times in the past and where the South Indian restaurant Vindhyas had effortlessly increased my weight.

The room was nice, the layout similar to the Orchid and I switched on the TV set, in pleasurable anticipation of an Indian revival. Imagine my horror when I realised that the TV set had a mere 15 channels and Star Cricket was not one of them!

My geniality evaporated and my scowl matched Harbhajan's expression, which has been a feature of this English tour. But one of the features of the Ramanujams is that we don't take things lying down, particularly when it comes to the gentleman's game, more so when Dhoni had done the ultimate gentlemanly thing even if it was under duress!

I called the duty manager and there was a Maharashtrian gentleman there. I asked him in my sweetest tone as to why there was no Star Cricket in the room and as a Maharashtrian whether he watched the cricket at all. One of the basic principles of service providers is not to try to be fresh, particularly when their customers are angry. Perhaps thinking he would endear himself to me, he said that he too wanted to watch the cricket but what to do the cable had a technical problem. I asked to speak to his boss and he said I could do so the next morning.

I was quickly losing it and ran the risk of being banned as I asked for the number of the boss. He politely refused. I was ranting now and asked for the technician. The technician promptly arrived and said in his truthful way that Star Cricket was not being subscribed to. I was mad, but not mad enough to not follow the match and did so on my computer, as I heard the Test Match Special as I had done three decades ago, even as I waited for the next morning and the general manager of the hotel.

The morning after


Morning followed murkily, India was in the doldrums and I was getting more annoyed by the moment. I promptly met the Front Office Manager of the hotel, who was all smiles and said he knew about the problem and would fix it. I reminded him that the match started at 3.30 p.m.

I went back at 5 p. m., after the sessions, hoping against hope. Well, nothing had changed, neither India's fortunes nor the TV channel. When I confronted the manager, he said he had called the cable operator and there was a ‘technical problem”. I was amazed.

Did he really think I was born yesterday? Even an eight-year-old would know that it was DTH, which could be subscribed to at short notice and I had volunteered to pay! In hindsight it was probably better that I did not watch India's humiliation but my misery was complete when Geoffrey Boycott compared India to Bangladesh and unfavourably at that on radio, my now trusted media partner.

I walked morosely out to dinner to the restaurant to be greeted by posters of Mr Kamat, the owner of the hotel (someone I admire enormously), speaking of his inspirations. I just thought that he might have been better served worrying about his customers. But then who am I to complain about big hotel magnates? And yet as a customer, I started wondering about what ails customer service in the hospitality industry specifically and in the country in general. What was the problem? The money or lack of empowerment?

Do we empower routinely?


I believe we handle routine service issues well but get into trouble when the issue is non-routine. Should the lobby manager have been empowered? Should the manager of the hotel not have tried to be “smart” with his guest and told him something that was patently false? Should I have quietly gone away thinking dark thoughts? Sadly, I am today's customer. I have a voice and I will share it. But, if only, if only the hotel had shown the slightest empathy for me or even tried to handle my problem I would have been satisfied. I would have told the whole world of how much they cared. Solving a customer's problem is the easiest way to her heart and wallet.

But is someone listening?


I flew back by Kingfisher. The entertainment system was not working. Now, of course, I am used to this.

And yet, I believe some good came out of all this. I was so mad at everything that I cancelled my trip to England and shelved my plans to watch the third Test at Edgbaston.

Who knows, that might well be the change of fortune that India needs!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar
Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri


17 comments:

Mathew Anthony said...

I have realized complaining in this country does not work. What is broken stays broken until there is a change in management. Why add your head to the debris. Best is to leave it be and look for a way out and make that your default mode for the future - whether airlines, hotels or our cricketers performance after a money-raking IPL Season.

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

Mathew, my head tends to agree with you, while my heart questions and asks "are we giving up too easily?"
Maybe service providers too need a judge and with online we have more power than before as consumers.

A G Krishnamurthy said...

Very true, very good. But who cares??? Neither the customer nor the service provider...both of of us are used to it. If some thing doesnt go wrong, we are surprised, and shocked.. We have become a nation of people, careless and callous all the time without any remorse or regret.....

I used to fight a lot for similar issues raised by you............. it went on for a while. Now I am quite calm and accept every thing which comes my way...Because thats the way we are.. period.....

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

Yes, very relevant. Lets see how long I can go on!!!

shrini said...

"Shud V take the pain to convey to the person concerned in a more polite and understandable manner?"
I totally agree with you in the incidents tat happened (n happenin) n ur reactions sir. But let me share my recent experience with Sony Vaio service centre when I went 4 some tech glitch in my laptop. Once I approached d reception, I found two ladies arguing with a service engg. abt their inability to address d problem (and solve it ofcourse), even after taking a weeks time. Now, as a customer who is going to Vaio serv centre 4 d 1st time, am bound to listen to the conversation, observe the engg's response, their empathy 4 d cust and create a mind map of what happened (or what cud possibly happen to me). Though the conversation ended in some agreement sooner, and thou i somehow STILL trusted them and elaborated on my laptop's problem, there was a degree of uncertainity of me encountering similar problem the week after. Nevertheless, what i did is to have a relaxed conversation with the serv engineer to convey my problem fully. And finally took the liberty to ask him if he wud mind I suggest a small idea to him. After gaining the engineer's confidence and possibly a good relationship, I told him to take the customer discussion to a separate room and never have such arguments infront of many customers. A small closed room, making the customer sit and explain cud ONE->reduce their temper and intensity of aggression, TWO->not create doubts in minds of new customers like me.
And guess what? The engineer thanked me for the suggestion. Am not sure if he has implemented it, but with the gratitude in his eyes, am sure this suggestion wil stay with him 4 some time.
So when situations go bad, and when we think we deserve certain things, (if not this time), why can't we educate ppl so as they improve their business better, cuz at the end of the day, its eventually wat the customers expect which will be conveyed.

Vasuki Seshadri said...

Loved the article(more your style of writing) and have been reading the book. Have sent the link to many others who have enjoyed it. In general service levels across various sectors has dropped a lot. Guess because of the growth of the economy many folks just don't bother about the consumer. Also interestingly in the days when IT support etc. was at a bare minimum customer service was a lot better; with all the fancy CRM's etc. customer service has not gotten better. On another note, I always felt that good international brands deliver relatively poor quality products in India at comparative dollar pricing and still get away with it; lots of examples here.

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

Yes, strange that even with so much technology at our disposal, the quality of service has plummeted.

Sujit John said...

I agree with you. We have this habit of trying to bluff our way out of a situation, which can be very irritating to those who are at the receiving end.

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

Yes, but sometimes we can get caught too!

Bala said...

Excellent article. You really have a good way of writing. I liked it - more because of the interest in Customer Service industry. I am sure several of us have similar examples - but it is great that atleast some of us are able to write about it. Good one, and well written.

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

Thanks Bala. Strangely no response from Kingfisher!

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

Good one. I agree about KF, I can't comment on the hotel. What really surprised me is that your flt took off on time. My experience is that they cancel one out of of 3 flights due to shortage of aircraft/pilot/passengers...

Kris Lakshmikanth said...

Good one. I agree about KF, I can't comment on the hotel. What really surprised me is that your flt took off on time. My experience is that they cancel one out of of 3 flights due to shortage of aircraft/pilot/passengers...

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

Strangely the hotel responded. Kingfisher did not!

Shrini said...

"Shud V take the pain to convey to the person concerned in a more polite and understandable manner?"
I totally agree with you in the incidents tat happened (n happenin) n ur reactions sir. But let me share my recent experience with Sony Vaio service centre when I went 4 some tech glitch in my laptop. Once I approached d reception, I found two ladies arguing with a service engg. abt their inability to address d problem (and solve it ofcourse), even after taking a weeks time. Now, as a customer who is going to Vaio serv centre 4 d 1st time, am bound to listen to the conversation, observe the engg's response, their empathy 4 d cust and create a mind map of what happened (or what cud possibly happen to me). Though the conversation ended in some agreement sooner, and thou i somehow STILL trusted them and elaborated on my laptop's problem, there was a degree of uncertainity of me encountering similar problem the week after. Nevertheless, what i did is to have a relaxed conversation with the serv engineer to convey my problem fully. And finally took the liberty to ask him if he wud mind I suggest a small idea to him. After gaining the engineer's confidence and possibly a good relationship, I told him to take the customer discussion to a separate room and never have such arguments infront of many customers. A small closed room, making the customer sit and explain cud ONE->reduce their temper and intensity of aggression, TWO->not create doubts in minds of new customers like me.
And guess what? The engineer thanked me for the suggestion. Am not sure if he has implemented it, but with the gratitude in his eyes, am sure this suggestion wil stay with him 4 some time.
So when situations go bad, and when we think we deserve certain things, (if not this time), why can't we educate ppl so as they improve their business better, cuz at the end of the day, its eventually wat the customers expect which will be conveyed.

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

You are absolutely right. Sadly some of us lose our cool and the plot in the bargain! Your suggestion of isolating the customer to a separate area is a good one and sometimes service people who are under stress may miss some obvious things.

Ramanujam Sridhar said...

I agree that courtesy makes the whole situation better. Sometimes though we lose our heads and the transaction becomes worse.