It was early morning in Bangalore International airport I was on my way to Hyderabad with a colleague of mine. I had a severe urge of having a cup of coffee and he had the similar urge for the tea. We approached the cafe and waited for our turn to place the order. Once on the counter we ordered the beverages we were having severe urge of and two blueberry muffins. Once the order placed and cash exchanged lady from the back end asked “Sir, is it for parcel?”, I almost panicked as if she is just going to do something fishy and replied in a concerned tone “No, we did not mention that, Right?” with the concern written all over my face. To this she just gave a smile which I had to return any ways, but I ended feeling like an idiot for my heavy reaction on a trivial issue.
We went to the delivery counter, by this time I did recover and I could maintain my sense of humour. The guy at the counter welcomed me with a broad smile and greetings. By now I could realise they were trained in this fashion to handle their customers. I was quite impressed and felt good about this as this is what I could only see in my trip abroad. We settled to a seat near the delivery counter to enjoy our grab. Then came a man in is late fifty to the delivery counter, He handed his slip and all he was returned with was a water bottle, he fumed “Where is the Tea?” the guy at the counter carefully inspected the slip to find out if he missed it and said “Sir, you have not ordered one” to this it was even a bigger grunt “They do not ask the customer what all he requires, and I can say it is a worst kind of service”. The guy at the back of the counter must be quite irritated but maintained his calm and said politely “Sir, no problem you can order again”. The drama continued as the guy was quite irritated until the guy finally got settled with his cup of tea and a water bottle. Once nicely placed he had a majestic way to access every other table and their occupants as if a proud King does for his poor peasants. Probably he was enjoying his sadist pleasure of making everyone know that he is some kind of a personality. Almost immediately a European couple came to the delivery counter. While delivering the coffee the counter guy cautioned him that it is too hot and tried to give a extra paper cup so as to withstand the heat, the European lady smiled back and said “ My husband is strong guy and can handle that heat” to this there was laughter from all the side and the humour was simply great.
I would never forget learning from one of the Bollywood movie “Munna Bhai MBBS” on how to judge a person in shortest time. It is the way he or she treats people lower in strata to them. I might be criticising him now but honestly I had been reacting the similar way earlier and most of the people in India do. In western world they say “Customer is a King” in India “we believe as customer we are the Kings” that to a real tyrant one, one with lot of arrogance and attitude. Most of us keep on shuffling between either sides of this story but still when we become customers we really become a difficult one. Probably while facing a customer we face more of those difficult ones and hence we try to emulate them when we become customers. I think it should be the other way around and we should understand what those unreasonable demands our customer makes are and we should try not to make those kinds of demands when we become a customer.
Recently I faced a problem in the office internet, one that of unstable condition. When we called the customer care they said that “Sir, we have noted down your complain and someone will attend to you in next 72 hours” I surely fumed but trying to keep my cool I said “Do you mean that by the time the complain is addressed you will not be charging me for that period?” pat came the reply “Sir, how can that be?” that blew the lid out of the nicely shaken soda bottle. What happened next is only known to me and the poor operator at the other end. Well true to their promise the person called me in next 72 hrs time to buy further 24hrs to come and see the problem. What I am trying to say is the other side of the coin is we do not necessarily give good service many a time too.
Well this game continues and all I could say is “We are like this only”. I promise to came back some time writing “How to handle a difficult customer?” till then allow me to learn and note something on this.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Recession but no depression, Hopefully
I just got the wittiest answer to “What is recession and depression?” During my various reads on recession, recently I encountered a definition “When your friends and people around you lose jobs, it is recession, when you lose job it is depression.” Everybody must be having their own bouts of stories around recession, me too. Today, when I just go for a stroll in the neighbourhood, and when I see people talking on the phone, I surely hear the words “recession” or “Job”, at least 5 out of 10 times. The other day I was with my colleague in the car, going for a customer meeting, he is one of those chatty types; he got all the calls mentioning about the problem in job. Some have lost it or some have just got the reduction. After a bout of those doses he commented “Sir, recession has gone to its worst”. I maintained my silence and kept on pondering again on recession.
I have already spend a day in Satyam’s” city, two more to days to go. We just had a few sets of customer meetings already, could sense a mixed bag of response. In this recession we still are braving an I Idea to have office in Hydrabad, this was to the utter surprise of many and relief to few. The silver lining for us is getting new sales of service personal s not going to be a problem assured by everybody almost anonymously. I have an etching feeling to start with yet another venture for consultancy on ERP solutions to SMB. To this regard I was speaking to a friend, who works for the large software company also in ERP. I told him “Yaar, I want to still start this venture”, he said that “Situation is very gloomy, last Friday our company announced lay off, We had large crowd of people coming on Saturday to check if there access card still works”, I contested “I understand this, but don’t you think that it is the right time to take the plunge, opportunities also comes along with recession”. He was not able to digest it probably and kept silent, or he thought that I am foolishly optimistic. Hence I ended the discussions with “Think about it, we must not lose an opportunity”.
Well, Now I have little addition to make to what my CFO friend has to say, as mentioned in my last blog on recession. Situation is going to decline further then what reflects of all the misdoing that the perpetrators of the recession has envisaged on us. It is now probably going to have snow ball effect in the economy. Recently the economics pundits have started giving their analysis on the down turn which rather not so discouraging, just thought to put in some points:
1. US should rebound sooner than the EU block and Japan. Its heart warming to hear that they have already started seeing the revival of economy. I am just thinking, if it means that we are over with the bottom stuff, or the economist was one of those optimistic kinds.
2. India GDP growth at 7% might be still higher a target. They say agriculture should contribute about 1%, Industry about another 1% and services about 4%. Hence 6-6.5 % GDP growth should be in realistic term. Still better then the negative growth in GDP widespread.
3. I have saved this for the last but this has gladdened my heart the most .They say you need to survive till December 2009, the first quarter should start seeing the upward trend quite distinctively. Ah, if this is true, I think we almost worried uselessly. I do not even want to imagine the consequences of them being wrong.
Recently, Obama announced that all the companies benefitting from the mother of all bailout packages will not be allowed to outsource the jobs outside USA. I understand that this is short term setback to Indian companies, but this should be good in longer term. What he has tried to do is to try to get the maximum effect of the bailout package on the domestic economy. Once the US economy is on track, it is any way a good omen for the balance. Remember, when they failed the world suffered.
This is February and in Hyderabad it is already scorching hot during the day. Traffic is maddening; no body follows the traffic rules nor give any heed to the traffic policeman. The rule is simple just follow the car bumper to bumper and forget about everything, people who need to cut across just need to wait for the gap, once you give room to the other ,you and your side of traffic stops and now you need to find your gap. What a traffic rule? Probably our friend Raju got some of his ideas from here.
I have already spend a day in Satyam’s” city, two more to days to go. We just had a few sets of customer meetings already, could sense a mixed bag of response. In this recession we still are braving an I Idea to have office in Hydrabad, this was to the utter surprise of many and relief to few. The silver lining for us is getting new sales of service personal s not going to be a problem assured by everybody almost anonymously. I have an etching feeling to start with yet another venture for consultancy on ERP solutions to SMB. To this regard I was speaking to a friend, who works for the large software company also in ERP. I told him “Yaar, I want to still start this venture”, he said that “Situation is very gloomy, last Friday our company announced lay off, We had large crowd of people coming on Saturday to check if there access card still works”, I contested “I understand this, but don’t you think that it is the right time to take the plunge, opportunities also comes along with recession”. He was not able to digest it probably and kept silent, or he thought that I am foolishly optimistic. Hence I ended the discussions with “Think about it, we must not lose an opportunity”.
Well, Now I have little addition to make to what my CFO friend has to say, as mentioned in my last blog on recession. Situation is going to decline further then what reflects of all the misdoing that the perpetrators of the recession has envisaged on us. It is now probably going to have snow ball effect in the economy. Recently the economics pundits have started giving their analysis on the down turn which rather not so discouraging, just thought to put in some points:
1. US should rebound sooner than the EU block and Japan. Its heart warming to hear that they have already started seeing the revival of economy. I am just thinking, if it means that we are over with the bottom stuff, or the economist was one of those optimistic kinds.
2. India GDP growth at 7% might be still higher a target. They say agriculture should contribute about 1%, Industry about another 1% and services about 4%. Hence 6-6.5 % GDP growth should be in realistic term. Still better then the negative growth in GDP widespread.
3. I have saved this for the last but this has gladdened my heart the most .They say you need to survive till December 2009, the first quarter should start seeing the upward trend quite distinctively. Ah, if this is true, I think we almost worried uselessly. I do not even want to imagine the consequences of them being wrong.
Recently, Obama announced that all the companies benefitting from the mother of all bailout packages will not be allowed to outsource the jobs outside USA. I understand that this is short term setback to Indian companies, but this should be good in longer term. What he has tried to do is to try to get the maximum effect of the bailout package on the domestic economy. Once the US economy is on track, it is any way a good omen for the balance. Remember, when they failed the world suffered.
This is February and in Hyderabad it is already scorching hot during the day. Traffic is maddening; no body follows the traffic rules nor give any heed to the traffic policeman. The rule is simple just follow the car bumper to bumper and forget about everything, people who need to cut across just need to wait for the gap, once you give room to the other ,you and your side of traffic stops and now you need to find your gap. What a traffic rule? Probably our friend Raju got some of his ideas from here.
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