Customer Service – Third Eye Observations

Life in UK – TFL.GOV is fabulous!

A great way to get people here in India to think you are unhinged is to start a conversation with ” I think a local government body can provide good customer service!” If ever that award was instituted, Local government body and Good Customer Service would easy win nominations here for ‘Oxymoron of the Century‘Continue reading “Life in UK – TFL.GOV is fabulous!”

Rate this:

Airtel vs O2 – A Lesson in Customer Service

We who scrounge in this Kafkaesque spiritual and cultural desert in Big City India still have a few things going for us. Customer Service. I know. I’ll wait for you to finish your ROFLing. Allow me. Last month I had an O2 pre paid number in London for a month. Worked fine. Can’t really complain.Continue reading “Airtel vs O2 – A Lesson in Customer Service”

Rate this:

On Hiring : Hire for Interesting, not ‘Normal’

When an organization is screening a potential candidate for a customer service manager role, what is the hiring team looking for ? Interviewing is a hit and miss game and after 200 of them recently, I have sort of given up on them as a dependable tool in filtering people. Too many false positives. AndContinue reading “On Hiring : Hire for Interesting, not ‘Normal’”

Rate this:

The likely connection between Profitability and Good Customer Service

ka-ching! : An imitation of the sound made by a cash register, used when someone’s action will result in more money. Wow! : In this context, the exhaled sound from a delighted customer walking away from the transaction. Usually precedes the Ka-Ching. So the greats (Amazon, Zappos, Apple, Southwest) easily manage both on the aboveContinue reading “The likely connection between Profitability and Good Customer Service”

Rate this:

Evolution of the Experience

Earlier in India, universally, customer service was shoddy. Out of 100 companies that served you, you could bet 90 just didn’t give a damn. Esp if it was not for a luxury product. Like just another random restaurant. a railway ticket. the phone company. Today, it’s 50-50. And I find this exciting. We have comeContinue reading “Evolution of the Experience”

Rate this:

Hacking the Service Code

‘Smart’ pundits who love climaxing to epigrams sometimes dub China the ‘world’s factory’ and India, it’s ‘back office’. Although I would contend this is an irritating reductionism masking an aversion to in-depth research or independent thinking or worse, both, the economic nom de plumes can be taken as a go-point for some mental base jumping.Continue reading “Hacking the Service Code”

Rate this:

Trust Your Customer

I shop occasionally with Amazon and iTunes online but I am a Über-customer of Airtel, India’s communication behemoth. I have been with them over a decade and use pretty much every damn service they provide : Mobile Service. Broadband Service. BlackBerry Service. iPTV service. GPRS service. Landline service and two mobile numbers. They sell itContinue reading “Trust Your Customer”

Rate this:

The farce that is Security Theatre

EVERY DAMN TIME. I get frisked every damn time I enter a mall, a theatre, a hotel here in NCR (delhi-gurgaon-noida region). This here, as the debate rages over in the US, where many are very vocally deriding the silly invasive body scans and accusing of it just being security theater. If those earnest checksContinue reading “The farce that is Security Theatre”

Rate this:

The dilemma of hypersuccess

Since some of us were naive students asked to mug the begineer concepts epoused by Kotler, we students were de facto led to believe that the success of a product or service we sold is a good thing. More success is a great thing and hyper success the holy grail. Now place yourself at customer# 53912482 of ….. BombayContinue reading “The dilemma of hypersuccess”