“Customer is king”… Sounds so powerful right? We hear this all around us. But do we really experience the ‘majesty’ of being a customer? More importantly do the companies that serve us make us feel like we are the kings? At the end of the day what kind of customer service do we receive from the companies we choose to do business with?
Having experienced the quality of customer services in US and back in India, I can say for sure that Indian companies need to learn a lesson or two from their US counterparts. Let me give you some examples of this. Ironically I received all three services within a span of fifteen days and hence I can clearly differentiate between the qualities of the service offered.
Example one:
I and my friend were on our regular coffee break. Since our office has different vending machines that vend coffee, we decided to try a new one this time. Oblivious of the fact that the good ol’ penny is no longer accepted by the machine, I put in 40 cents in the machine which included five 1 cent coins. The pennies were rejected upfront and the machine held my 35 cents. Since the minimum charge for a coffee is 40 cents, I decided to take my money back. Well to my disbelief the machine gave me back 30 cents. The machine attendant was standing nearby and I said to him that the machine devoured my 5 cents. I wasn’t concerned too much about those 5 cents but wanted to let him know that there was some problem with the machine. To my amazement the machine attendant opened the machine, twisted some knobs inside and said to me “Take whatever you want from the machine, it’s free”. I was pleasantly surprised at his gesture of accepting the problem and compensating me. I thanked him and made sure that I told about his customer service to everyone in my team. I sure felt like a ‘King’ in this case.
Example two:
I happen to be a customer of India’s 2nd largest bank. Yes I am talking about ICICI bank. Frankly enough I am not too happy with the customer service that they have offered me through the years but unfortunately I continue to bank with them. I had a little ‘war of words’ with them recently when they decided to charge the online money transfer (NEFT) facility. When I questioned them about this move, they responded back saying that the fee has been levied based on RBI guidelines (it’s their usual rhetoric). I was not too convinced with this answer and asked for a concrete proof (like a webpage link to this new guideline or the copy of the guideline itself). Mails flew back and forth and the ICICI customer representative persisted that the move was done according to the RBI guidelines but never shared any credible proof. I escalated the matter and continued to probe for a proof. After 15 days of dillydallying, I finally received a copy of the RBI circular from ICICI bank which mentions about the fees to be levied for online money transfer facility. What could have been done differently in this case? ICICI bank could have shared this proof with all of its customers to begin with and there hardly would have been any questions. Now since they decided to take their own sweet time and ‘frustrate’ me, I doubted the authenticity of their decision to charge NEFT transactions and now would think twice before recommending ICICI bank to anyone. Is this a good customer service? Absolutely not. Did I feel like a ‘King’? Are you kidding?
Example three:
Few days ago I received a free coupon from the Blackberry online application store so I decided to do some purchase online. During the check out process I didn’t find the ‘free coupon’ option and used my credit card instead. The charges were billed to my credit card. Since I wanted to use the coupon for this purchase and not my credit card, I wrote to the customer support citing this problem. The customer service person was quick to respond and after looking into the problem, he decided to send me another (higher value) free coupon since they didn’t want to lose me as their customer. On the other hand, the customer service person could have easily refuted my claim and would have chosen not to respond or would have delayed the response. But instead, he went ahead and made the customer feel like a ‘King’.
There have been a number of occasions where I have received wonderful customer service. One such instance has been recorded my earlier blog http://abloggernamedjohn.blogspot.com/2009/08/swine-flu-scare.html
I hope the quality of customer service improves in India in the days to come.
Did you have similar experiences with customer service? Send in your comments.
