Where’s the ‘service’ in this service-driven economy?

We all know how the service sector has been driving the Indian economy to newer heights. With almost 60% of the GDP no being contributed by the services sector, we all believe that the future of India is in the services sector (like other developed economies).

However, the hoopla is very appealing only if you are a provider because there are consumers ready to buy your services. Change the suit and become a consumer and you will immediately see the shallowness of our much touted service sector.

Everyday, if you pay attention, you will see how customers are treated like dirt and how there is a total absence of the essential service mindset. If you look at the mission and values of the services companies, you will most definitely find words like ‘customer delight’, ‘empathy’ and the like but the truth is that these words never trickle down to the actual front desk people who are supposed to provide this ‘delight’ to the customers. The sad part is that this problem is faced by customers at not only at small scale service providers but big ticket providers like Air Sahara, Foodworld, Videocon!

In a recent experience with Air Sahara, I almost lost my connecting flight due to a 1.5 hour delay in the Sahara Bangalore - Mumbai flight. Late flights are something which we have now almost accepted as Business As Usual but what appalled me was the total lack of interest in the Mumbai Air Sahara staff to listen to what I needed and him taking more interest in what his female colleague had to say rather than what his customer wanted to know! A complaint to the mail-id given to me (bomdm@airsahara.net) hasn’t even generated an acknowledgement of the receipt of my mail.

There have been numerous occasions when I have seen the checkout counters of Foodworld not occupied resulting in a long queue forming in the existing counters and in most occasions I had to demand that a new counter b opened before any action was taken. Again a mail to higher ups hasn’t generated any response!

My wife bought a Videocon Next Food processor in December. The demo personnel has not managed to come to us even after 4 months and numerous reminders because he either works only from 12 noon to 5pm (he has never been able to meet an appointment beyond these times!) or does not want to do such a lowly thing as a demo!

The lack of the ‘delight’ element is the result of two factors:

1. We are not doing a good job as consumers. Having got accustomed to dealing with public sector organizations (Railways, Air India, PWD etc) over the years, we have become used to poor service. We are not demanding enough and we don’t complain to the providers about deficiencies. This results in them most of the times not being aware of what is going wrong. Most of the times I have seen that everyone is just waiting for someone to take the lead. Once you point out the deficiency, others will second that. As Indians whose time has come, we should be man enough (and woman enough) to get what we deserve.

2. In this fast growth phase when demand clearly outstrips supply, the focus of the organizations is on the back end rather than the front end as due to high demand, a customer lost will definitely be replaced by a new customer. Allegiances to particular brands are not yet fully established so customer service as a differentiator is not a priority for most companies. Due to this need to ramp up fast, the employees at the front end are not fully trained to treat the customer as king. They are not there to ‘serve’ customers. They are there to just do their job. Hence, almost all the time you will see the front end staff ill-informed, unable to handle customer complaints and defensive and reactive.

With liberalization now more than 25 years old, foreign competition entering into every arena and consumers, though slowly but surely showing more brand preferences, companies that identify this gap and strive genuinely to fill it by making customer service as their differentiator, will survive the onslaught of the competition.

During my ordeal with Air Sahara at Mumbai airport, a Jet Airways staff helped me even though I had arrived on a Sahara flight and she immediately raised the image of Jet in our minds and has definitely won over two customers!