You can’t make them work, can you?

by Yayaati Joshi

[box]Are you increasingly beginning to feel that the ‘customer’ is no longer the ‘king’? Well, you are not alone! Service providers today are least bothered about treating their customers well, points out Yayaati Joshi. For all the money that we pay them –from the tailor to the domestic help to bigger service providers such as banks and telecom companies, service leaves a lot to be desired. Read on for more personal observations on this unhealthy trend.[/box]

One might have come across phrases such as ‘Consumer is King’ or ‘The customer is always right’, and many more, in which the customer/buyer has been considered some sort of God who has to be propitiated with some excellent service/offerings. But consider this for a moment, and ponder hard: when was the last time you felt really well treated, in terms of a service that was rendered to you?

Those of you, who have had more than half a dozen pleasant experiences lately, should consider yourselves lucky. Let’s take the example of a tailor who renders services. Most tailors never deliver on time. As a ‘buyer’, what can you really do if the tailor doesn’t get your clothes ready when you need them? Yes, one can argue, one can hurl expletives, but then, what purpose does it really serve? It might make one feel better that the tailor has been disciplined, but what has really happened is that a frustrated customer has vented his anger (and rightly so). The most severe retribution that you can seek is never to use the tailor’s services again, and go on doing some “bad publicity” for him, but that won’t harm his reputation much. Given the plethora of customers who need to get clothes stitched every now and then, the tailor won’t lose much business.

The same predicament is often faced when using the services of any service provider-banks, telecommunications, retail outlets or even the domestic help that many of us use. If the bank refuses, or “forgets” to honour your cheque in time, apart from making a hue and cry and complaining, there isn’t much that one can do. The same applies to telecommunication providers, as they more often than not, cancel services, overcharge you, or send you the bill late and expect the payment to be made on time. One can resort to a complaint – to be made to the Consumer Forums or the Ombudsman, but how many of us really have the time to do it?

But the issue here is not that of punitive action and subsequent discipline. It is that of ethical work standards, which should be a prerequisite for service providers, retail outlets, banks, etc. Do we, or do we not pay them? (And in some cases, pay exorbitant amounts for minuscule amount of work). If you pay someone to do something, the payment should evoke some sense of moral responsibility on the receiver. Despite being well paid to do the assigned work, service providers often deliver suboptimal results.

From their standpoint, the worst thing that could happen to them is loss of business, or bad word of mouth publicity. But they don’t seem to care anymore – as if the good old standards of customer service/satisfaction are now a thing of the past – something that used to be a flashy business policy, which is now an operational burden. The same phenomenon, I have been told, is prevalent in larger corporations, in massive companies, where employees, despite being warned against poor performance, have failed to deliver time and again.

The service providers are just like some employees in larger organisations – it is easy for them (both the service providers and the employees) to shirk responsibility. Ensconced in the blanket of collective responsibility (and not individual responsibility), service providers and employees underperform.

All this eventually points to only one thing – a lack of moral fibre. Gone are the days when one’s work was considered to be something that is indicative of a person’s/organisation’s character. Today, as customers, we really are at the mercy of the service providers. We can pay them – in the hope that they will deliver – but much of our optimistic stances will be insidiously mocked at when someone decides to take us for granted. How many choices do we have anyway? If it’s not this bank, then it is the other one. If one telephone service is discontinued, the other will have to be used. After all, we all need banks and telephones.

Our hard earned money is often spent for such in-disciplined service providers who couldn’t care less for our needs. One can issue vague threats to them, one can warn them that he/she will not use their services anymore, but one can’t make them work. And that remains the unfortunate reality.

So the next time you see this written somewhere, let it bring a smile to your face.

“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption in our work – he is the purpose of it.
We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

Yayaati Joshi is a man with simple tastes and intense beliefs. Contrary to the bling associated with the capital city, he prefers the company of close friends, an engaging book or an Alfred Hitchcock movie. His placid demeanour is often mistaken for reticence; Yayaati is a self- proclaimed loner, whose recent pursuits include his foray as a budding writer. Yayaati blogs at http://rantingsofadelusionalmind.wordpress.com

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