How many times your telecom service provider has given you bloated bills and then forced you to pay for something you have not even consumed. Or, have you been promised of loads of free gifts, along with a pack of books/DVDs etc., by the reasonably well known direct marketing company, without actually bothering to deliver the free gifts, even after getting paid for the primary stuff? Examples like these are numerous. I personally have faced situations like this a few times. Sometime back, I was presented with a bill by one of India’s largest telecom company in the private sector for, my broadband connection that was about seven times higher than what I had normally been paying. Eventually, I could get a waiver of part of the bill, as their officials accepted that there was a problem at their end. However, the resolution did not come so very easily, as they tried all the tricks, so that they do not need to pay up for their own misdeeds. And, off course I also had my share of woes in getting access to their officials, as the customer service executives would simply not allow me to talk to any of the officials and blatantly refused to give the emails of their senior management.

On another count, I had placed an order for educational DVDs with India Today Book Club. They were prompt in delivering the DVDs and collecting the payment, but they faltered miserably in delivering the free gift that they promised. The gift remained undelivered for several weeks and then a communication was received from them, stating that the same would be delivered within the next few days, as they have run out of stock. What to talk of few days, more than 8 months have passed by, since I received that communication and nothing has happened. And, the worst part is that these organizations create a veil of secrecy around their operations and the poor consumer not knowing as to how these issues can get resolved.

In the quest for making some quick sales, businesses often fail to see the underlying risk of losing larger ground, in the medium to long term. And, due to the faulty adoption of technology in customer service, several of these entities don’t even leave any room for the customers, to bring such glaring slippages to the notice of their higher ups. Who told these irresponsible companies that functional automation means, they need not give physical access to their customers for service and other resolutions and instead just use bots and faceless customer service executives, lacking the willingness to delight the customers. They forget that customer is the king and not the seller. If they do not get the desired attention, they would never return.

It is high time that organizations adopt a more balanced mix of customer service delivery, leaving enough scope for the customer to get a quick resolution.

Sounds absurd, is’nt it? But, what if I say that rather than anything else, it may be very much a necessity, to sustain in the impending slow down. How many organizations have even given a thought into this regard? I have a very strong point to prove it.

Recently, I had gone through a tough time in retrieving a copy of my health policy that I had bought from an insurance company that supposedly has a high pedigree. I had made numerous calls to their call centre for the resolution to my problem, however every time the promises made were blatantly violated, caring the least for the customer. Even email messages went unacknowledged and eventually the one reply that I got, made no effort in resolving the issue. A company that belongs to one of the biggest business groups in India and its founder, who figures among the top 10 richest persons in the world, can have such pathetic customer service approach. And, even then people flock to their offices for doing business with them and make them even wealthier. But, not any more. In the tough economic scenario, there would still be lots and lots of business opportunities, but unfortunately it will be restricted to only those entities, who can treat their customers with dignity and provide efficient service.

Going forward, with my case, I had to write a strong mail to the President & CEO of the company, literally asking him to rise up to the challenge of proving that his organization is not as bad in providing customer service, as his people down below him, have made it to be. The saving grace was that the CEO’s office swung into action on the very same day and the soft copy of the policy was served to me through mail. The chief executive probably understood the importance of good customer service and probably also cared for the image of the company. Hence, the quick response.

Well, organizations have been investing tons of money to implement enterprise wide solutions for, automating the functional areas and lot of them are also investing heavily on state-of-the-art CRM solutions, but how many companies have integrated these systems with their respective corporate objectives, in true sense. It seems for many companies it becomes more of a routine rigmarole, rather than a sincere endeavour for bringing efficiency, into the way the end customer is served. Companies may be wying with each other to offer best experiences to their customers, by way of value offers, discounts, loyalty bonuses and what not, but seriously speaking all that would go in vain if they are not able to do the basic things for their customers. The employees across the board need to be sensitized, about the importance of good customer service and the benefits that the resultant customer delight can bring to the organization. After all happy customers would ensure smooth sailing for a business for all times to come.