We are like this only

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.