Professional Approach – Call Centres

The nuisance calls on cell phone have not ceased completely.

Though I had chosen only certain categories of calls to be permitted on my cell phone via the national “do not disturb” registry, after a while the calls somehow started off again. Since one does not wish to shut off “financial institutions-related” calls and text messages, there are now increased number of calls coming in from such institutions trying to sell some or the other financial product, offer loans at low interest rates, offer a new credit card, etc., etc.,

The messy thing in such calls is that these calls come in at any time, and can affect business transactions. Further, the caller from a bank’s call centre cannot speak proper English (usually) and indulges in chaste Hindi or sometimes Marathi, making an invalid assumption that the other side would understand. If you insist that any such conversation needs to be conducted only in English, the caller quickly switches off.

Such behaviour gives me the impression that even reputed banks (and other financial institutions) do not really ensure that their call centre employees are bilingual. I am also not sure if they really train these folks on how to engage in a conversation properly with customers, instead of opening the call with a question “would you be interested in our new product” ? I will rate the call centre employees below 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 when it comes to conducting a conversation in English.

This is not the case with the Credit Card Centre employees of many banks – they are well equipped, well prepared to handle any customer or situation, ready with the data, etc., May be because they are actually running a credit operation, the bank invests in better quality employees !

I have put off many a caller, sometimes rudely, especially when I am in the middle of something. The caller will then insist to get an alternate date/time to call, and almost invariably not call if you do provide such an alternate timing. So unprofessional, and that’s why I do not believe in the efficacy of customer service rendered via ordinary call centres (mostly outsourced).

Couple of call centre operations which are highly professional come to mind at this juncture – one is Dell and the others are HDFC Bank / Standard Chartered Bank. Excellent trained employees operate these call centres and give a feeling that you are indeed talking to the company or institution directly. Service is very good and prompt.

Overall, the disturbance which emanates via one’s cell phone can be done away with almost entirely, but for the proof of certain banking and credit card transactions which give comfort feeling. Otherwise, the cell phone is to be used only for important calls and messages which are to be expected rather than abrupt ones which disturb one’s equilibrium oftentimes.

The key thing for success in customer handling via call centre operation is a solid professional approach with knowledge of the customer and his problems. Someway to go to attain that situation………..

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan

20th May 2012

Mumbai

 

Surprising Service

It is very rare that one gets surprised by a government-owned company in India by its high quality or promptness of service delivery. It is becoming more and more difficult to get good quality of service even from private companies. We all have many instances to report, I am sure.

So, I was rather surprised to see a government-owned telecom company provide service at a very fast clip. I could only get a land line from this phone company at my new place of residence, which took some time as it involved transfer of telephone exchanges. I thought it should not take time at all as all exchanges are now run by computers. However, it took a few weeks to get my land line at my new place, but I timed it in such a way that when I occupied the new place the phone line was connected within a couple of days. So it was OK.

But what was interesting happened after that connection. We had examined all possible options for high-speed internet, and finally determined that the best way is to go back to the land line. This decision was prompted by the inconsistent performance of the 3G mobile internet using data cards. The speed was rated to be 21 MBPS on 3G, but typically you get around 3 to 4 MBPS which in itself is not bad. But the connection kept dropping, even though it was used at a single non-mobile place – that is, at my home. Further, the cost of the internet grows significantly at higher monthly downloads. Given that several folks at home do different bandwidth-consuming tasks, it was clear we need not less than 20 GB of download in a month at the minimum. So, all these considerations moved me towards the land line.

I called up the government-owned company’s contact numbers in the quest to get a broadband connection on my existing land line. It was difficult to get through, with call centre people not really wanting to do business, pushing me from one number to the other. But I did not lose patience, I cannot right ? It is me who wants the internet.

Finally, I found the right number and used the word “order” when I spoke to the call centre person. Government companies do not understand that the consumer can place an “order” for a product or service, they think it is the privilege of the consumer to be served by them. They cannot be “ordered” around ! In any case, I finally placed the order for a “combo” plan which can deliver up to 4 MBPS on my land line.

I place the order late one evening, say at 9 PM or so.

Voila ! The internet was connected the very next day before 5 PM. I could not believe it. No one in my family could believe that the government company can act so fast and deliver the service promptly, exceeding our expectations.

Of course, there were hiccups. The company connected the internet on another telephone socket via the ADSL modem that I gave to them, and then walked away. Later, we found that the telephone which was connected on another socket was not working – it was creating a hissing sound whenever we tried to use it, and we could not hear when someone tried to reach us.

The problem was that the company did not provide a telephone cable splitter at the telephone socket and then connect both the phone instrument and the modem to the splitter. And, now we are waiting for the company to revert and fix this problem. If we want to speak on the phone, we are now switching off the modem – ha ha ha !

Well, all in all, the government company delivered a consumer service faster than any private telecom company, and as a consumer, I do appreciate that. It is another point that I am pursuing them for the splitter, which they say that they do not provide !

We will see !!

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
26th February 2012
Mumbai

Push the Envelope

Getting things done in India, especially in the personal space, requires a lot of push and chase, even to ensure that the concerned people respond.

While I have been experiencing this phenomena for many years, I still feel new pain every time I try to get something done. A simple example this past week was to get the telephone line reconnected at my new place from the government telecom service provider.

Nothing has changed – I mean in the government sector, when it comes to delivering a simple, specific service to the average consumer. Even if one follows all the processes as per the rule book of the service provider, the expected level of service is not delivered.

Funny that I experienced the same poor level of service from both the government service provider as well as the private telecom service provider – I had both connections at my old place. In the case of the private provider, their helpline could not achieve what I wanted – which was essentially the termination of their telephone and broadband connection, since they could not provide the same service at my new place. I had no choice but to email the termination request to them, and when there was a poor response, had no choice but to escalate the matter to a known contact in their organization.

In the case of the government service provider, the situation was comic in several ways. First, they said that since I was changing from one telephone exchange area to another (though adjacent to the current area), the jurisdiction will change, and I have to approach the new exchange. Secondly, they asked me to be ready with the explanation of why I am changing my residence ! They wanted an explanation and further, proof of the new residential address. Thirdly, they said that I better be at the new place when their officer visits the place to check if I am there.

But, the most outlandish thing that they told me is to go and find out if they had indeed provided their own service connection to anyone else in my apartment building. Why would I do that ? But, I had no choice – do we have any choice in dealing with any governmental organization in India, I seriously doubt it.

So, here I was with this funny situation that I have to go around in my apartment complex and find out if anyone has this fabulous service provider’s telephone connection – amazing, isn’t it ? I thought in this era of total computerization, in which one can with a flick of a switch find out if a particular location is connected on one’ network, I am being asked to do something as stupid as this one.

I called the facility office of my complex, and asked them if they can furnish anyone’s details corresponding to the above requirement. Pat came the reply – their office itself uses that service provider ! I was relieved, and went ahead and submitted that number to the service provider.

They came couple of days later and wanted to activate the connection at my place. I said, yes fine go ahead. They asked for……for a ladder ! To climb up and open their own switch board and activate my connection. I did not have a ladder on hand and asked them to use a stepper stool, which they rejected. I thought, this is really amazing – how can a consumer tolerate such a telecom service provider, and why should he tolerate such nonsense at all ?

In any case, they said they would come back after a day and told me to keep the ladder ready. There goes another day of productive use of the telephone.

All the above taught me that India is indeed faraway from a consumer orientation when it comes to delivering a service satisfactorily. And, it again proved that government should not be running a telecom (or for that matter, an airline) service company. No wonder this company has been making huge losses.

Now, I am afraid that this humongous company may go down on one fine day and I will be again left out without a telephone !

Cheers, come to the 21st Century India Folks,

Vijay Srinivasan
19th February 2012
Mumbai

The Moving Troubles

I moved my residence just about a distance of ten kilometres from where I was living for three years in Mumbai.

It turned out to be as much effort as moving to a different city.

My estimate was that it would be a quick and fast move, given the efficiency that one generally experiences in the island city.

But it did not turn out to be such a move.

I realized one thing – that if you give more information to the packers and movers, that actually backfires on the actual move !

Yes, it was amazing. I was very specific to the point of what item to be moved when, how it needs to be packed, how it needs to be verified while actually moving, how it should be unpacked, etc., – my wife actually did most of the planning though. But, I discovered that the packer did not actually understand what we were trying to do.

The mover did the move in exactly the same manner he would do for anyone, without actual detailed instructions written down and handed out before the move. No change whatsoever.

It affected the delivery of the service badly. Expectations were not met. Couple of things were broken. Key things were not handled appropriately. And, no excuse was given (or sought, for that matter).

At the end of the move, my wife and myself were exhausted – we had to continuously monitor the work and insist on quality delivery (which did not come forth).

I realized that we made a mistake – too much of briefing and too much of explanation beforehand are actually not a good thing – hardly anything was being taken seriously in any case. That demonstrated that I selected the wrong mover. I also knew the best mover, the only reason why I did not go for that mover was the issue of pricing which was three times costlier.

Now, I decided it may not be a great idea to go with the cheapest or the untested packer and mover. One thing is certain – the party needs to have delivered a very good service to someone you know. The word of mouth and the referral that comes out it is very important. Further, a word back from the referee to the party (packer and mover that they had used) is very important to ensure that the good service continues to be delivered in your case.

Price is not the right determinant of service quality or deliverability of a service.

This is a critical lesson I learnt today.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
18th February 2012
Mumbai

Quality of Car Servicing

I switched my car servicing company a couple of weeks ago, simply because (a) I was tired of going to the same company / same location for the past 5 years ; and, (b) the customer database is apparently shared amongst all Toyota service partners so that they can entice new customers with some special offers, and I got two invitations from two new companies.

So, I thought why not try. After some dilly dallying, I finally found my way one Saturday to the new Toyota partner in a really mushy area of a Western Suburb of Mumbai. There were hardly any cars waiting to be serviced, may be two or three cars, so I rightfully assumed my car will be serviced in a short span of time.

Such assumptions usually go wrong, and in this case it did very badly. I gave the car at 11 AM, but got it really in my hands only by 7 PM. It was very surprising to me. It further taught me that marketing is way ahead of actual delivery in most consumer-related products in India. I have time and again seen such gaps in other product areas – such as telephone/broadband services, handyman services to fix things at home, car washing service in my apartment block, et al. I thought any car servicing partner would take care in handling first time customers, so that the guy stays on for future servicing at least say for the next couple of years.

But it was not to be. First the company took way too long to give back my car. Secondly, the car was not washed properly at the end of the service. Thirdly I could not find the service advisor who handled me when I gave my car in the morning. Fourthly, there was no detailed explanation of what was wrong with the car and what needs to be done further.

All this experience gives me the sense that India is way behind other countries in handling the consumers and providing satisfaction for the work performed / money paid. Eventually, the company which provides a combination of better servicing and quality advice is going to win. The other important thing is the billing for servicing – this is only better than telephone billing ! A lot of line items, sometimes not explained, is listed out and rates appear to be adhoc. At the end, a total figure looms over you and there is nothing you can do of course, except to pay and collect the car !

Not only all this, the very next day you get a telemarketing/service call from the same car service company, asking you how was the service, do you have any feedback, etc., When the call came, I used the opportunity to provide a detailed dissatisfaction index to the person on the other end, who was a bit taken aback. At the end of the call, she did not offer anything. I thought the idea was a feedback session which should be actioned off by the management. Nothing happened, is it surprising ? Somebody trying to fill up a form and that is her task, nobody cares really.

Well, that is the continuing saga of poor quality customer service in India.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
28th August 2011
Mumbai

Dell’s Service

I am writing to record my appreciation of excellent service by Dell.

I ran into serious technical problems on my home Dell Studio laptop (model 1558). It took 4 days to completely solve the problem. Yes, I was not happy with the time it took, as it has serious impact on family productivity as several folks use the same laptop and they complain about the loss of time.

Fortunately, we have another laptop (Acer Aspire 5580), which though old, continues to deliver decent performance for jobs and folks who do not scream at it. So, we were OK, but we did lose time and sometimes, patience with Dell.

There are a couple of points I wish to make, notwithstanding the loss of time:

1. The Dell technical support people were of high quality and handled me / my daughter quite well with prompt responses and resolution and they were totally committed to fixing the problems ;

2. They were reasonable when it finally came to the point when no further technical fixes could solve the problem for the long-term use of the laptop, and concurred with the need to replace the motherboard and the in-built stereo speakers. Usually, computer companies are stingy when it comes to parts replacement, though the laptop is under full warranty. Even in the case of Dell, they took a fairly long time in reaching the conclusion to replace expensive parts. But, they were nice about it and not picking holes in our arguments. It helps when the laptop is in its first year of what is a 3-year full comprehensive coverage !

However, Dell was not able to give satisfactory response why the battery performed in a sub-optimal way for just 60 minutes when it should have provided power to the laptop for atleast 2 to 2.5 hours. And the battery is rather new, with just 9 months of use on a new laptop ! The laptop has rarely been removed from mains AC power. So, why is the degradation of battery happening ? Dell refused to replace the battery though. I did not agree with them as I believe a laptop, being mobile in nature, should have a battery which atleast meets its specs as advertised. There is some drop in effectiveness of the battery as it goes through multiple charge/discharge cycles, but not to the extent of some 60% in just 9 months.

Nevertheless, I should say that Dell delivered an excellent technical service to me, and I am happy I chose Dell over other makes last year when I was shopping for a new laptop for my daughter.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
17th July 2011
Mumbai

Swiss Air

Another European airline, not unlike Lufthansa.

I had earlier written about Lufthansa experience, so I am not going to just repeat.

However, I saw an advertisement from Swiss Air, so I could not resist from publishing a blog post. The advertisement runs somewhat like this – “Every one of our mountains is unique.The same goes for our guests”. May be this advertisement was meant for the Business Class and First Class travellers. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and for Economy Class travellers, the mountains are “flattened”. Absolutely and clearly.

My recent travel on Swiss Air proves again that Swiss Air depends more on its brand name (the company went bankrupt if I could recall correctly !) and its famous country of origin, rather than on its personalized service standards. If a passenger can extract a smile from the air stewards/stewardesses of Swiss Air, then he could probably pat himself on the back. I never saw them smiling.

Government airlines or country air carriers are out of sync with service market philosophy and consumer expectations. A case in point at home is Indian Airlines / Air India. Very poor service, combined with constant flight disruptions and infighting have destroyed what could have been an excellent brand name.

Swiss Air and Lufthansa, luckily do not suffer from employee strikes, flight disruptions, and management infighting. However, they would go a very long way if they could successfully supplement their strong brand names with service-oriented smiling faces – whether on the ground or in the air. The Lufthansa Lounge at the Mumbai International Airport is one of the worst lounges I have seen anywhere around the world. Recently, when I walked in, I could not find a single empty seat. Further, the person at the reception could not care less.

Hopefully, things will change. But I seriously thought that European Airlines are more refined than the American ones in terms of customer service orientation and delivery.

Well, I would like to be disproved on my current conclusion that two of the top European airlines are lousy in rendering good customer service.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
14 May 2011
Mumbai

Tipping Point

Tipping in the U.S. for almost any consumer-oriented service is mandatory. In cases where there is any doubt that the patron would pay a gratuity, there is a forcible addition to the bill !

I was surprised (for the first time ever) to find such an estimated addition (some 15% of the bill) at an Indian restaurant recently. It is virtually forcing the patron to pay whether the service is satisfactory or not. I have always paid anywhere between 10% and 15% of the bill for service. 10% is more for average service and 15% for good service – that has been my practice so far, even though I don’t agree with the philosophy of tipping as such (we don’t tip in Singapore and rarely in India).

But forced tipping ? How about tipping at gun point ? That would be next, I guess. Just nothing short of ridiculous, but that is the way it is, and so it is better to adapt oneself to the new practice of inserting a pre-computed tip in the bill at most restaurants very soon.

Let me reiterate that I always tip in the U.S. and also tip for excellent service in India. No problem with that, but I believe that tipping has to come from one’s heart, rather than from just the wallet. Recognition and praise of good service should be part and parcel of everyday life, like we do in corporate life. But it cannot be based only on money only and that too, on a pre-calculated amount all the time at all the places. Good words are also expected.

In India, there is a 10% service charge on top of a 12% VAT, which is increasingly becoming the practice in restaurants. With that, I do not see any reason at all to pay an additional tip. I only can hope that the 10% service charge goes to the right folks in the restaurant !

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
16th April 2011
Miami

Emirates Experience

I flew by Emirates Airlines to Dubai recently. It was after almost six years that I used Emirates.

Comparisons are inevitable. My first preference was Jet Airways which was unfortunately full, filled up by Indian tourists flooding Dubai. So, I had to settle for whatever was available next, which in this case was Emirates.

It is a good airline of international standing, no doubt about that. The aircraft was clean and looked fresh. We had an on-time pull back from the gates, though the flight got held up from a take-off due to the line of planes all waiting to take off in Mumbai International Airport (not an unusual sight, given that the airport uses just one runway). The food was pretty decent, well presented and of good quality.

However, there was an issue, which happened to go largely unnoticed. That is the mostly stone-faced service by the air stewardesses. While they looked well dressed and well behaved, they hardly smiled, and were not proactive, in the sense that they did not reach out on their own to the passengers. May be they did that to the first class passenger, I don’t know. However, in a purely service-oriented industry, it is critical to create a feeling of being welcomed on board. It should not only be felt, but it should be explicit and well communicated. Though one or two of the stewardesses were friendly, that was not just good enough. May be they do not like to serve on the demanding Indian sector, but I do not think that was the case. I am sure they had the option to opt out of this sector.

The other issue was that, unlike other international airlines (such as Singapore Air, Cathay Pacific, Swiss Air), Emirates does not strive to deploy some India air hostesses, even a 15% ratio of Indians in the total population aboard the aircraft would create an ambience needed by the largely Indian customers using Emirates. This critical service marketing factor has been ignored by Emirates. Either the service provider trains its staff to adjust at least partially to the local culture of the customers it serves, or makes use of employees from the same culture.

I think this is a big issue that needs to be addressed. No airline is without its fault lines, but for an international airline with a global reputation, it is critical not to have deep fault lines. Emirates flies every day to many cities in India and has enough competence to discover some local talent, I am sure.

Well, those are my observations on Emirates. It indeed is a very good airline with reputation for on-time performance. My flight, though it departed some 30 minutes late, made good the lost time, and was I surprised ?

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
30th January 2011
Camp : Dubai

MNP & Customer Loyalty Test

MNP (Mobile Number Portability) is now a reality in India.

After a long series of pulls and pushes, MNP has finally arrived. I am sure there were technological issues and challenges in implementing MNP across so many telecom operators, and the delay is mostly due to these issues. However, I am also absolutely sure that the incumbent operators were unduly worried about the new operators and wanted to delay the MNP implementation till they actually get stronger in their customer loyalty programs, VIP customer service and customer retention.

These things do happen all over the world, even in developed countries, so the India story is not really surprising.

What was surprising is this – not many people, be the users or the media, were protesting over the delay. There was no public interest litigation against the delay, trying to take the Dept of Telecom to task at the altar of the Supreme Court. Of course, there is enough litigation already going on concerning the 2G spectrum allocation scandal, so one more would not have mattered at all. However, no one complained apparently about the repeated MNP delays.

Well, now that MNP has truly arrived, we have to wait and see what would the users do. It is projected that one out of every six cell phone users will try to switch their providers, mostly because of their current poor quality service provider. However we have to wait and see. It appears that it is indeed very easy to transfer between operators (just costs INR 19 – USD 0.4 or 40 US Cents !) by following a few simple steps which have been widely published in the newspapers.

I am thinking of doing something about my operators (I have more than one). If I do shift, will that benefit me in some way ? It would take some time to have a deterministic answer to that question. But surely the existing operators are trying hard. One of them keeps sending SMS text messages, offering various concessions. But when I call their customer service, I do not get a resolution for the problem raised. I did get commitments, that I would get a call back in two hours, etc., but that never happens.

What this shows is that Customer Loyalty is going to be under some serious stress when it comes to the telecom user base. It has been a seller’s market so far, now it is really turning the page towards more of a consumer-driven, buyer’s market out there in telecom.

Hopefully, that will be good news for consumers.

Cheers,

Vijay Srinivasan
22nd January 2011
Mumbai