Hi rodinhooders,
This is my first ever post on the website and I’m looking for some insight. In the following paragraphs I will try to outline problems majorly faced by a lot of telecom and other utility consumers in India along with my idea that could help the consumers including you and I. So please send me your feedback/comment/critique etc on the same!
Consumer 1: Devvrat, A young professional who works rough hours for a big auto-manufacturer. In fact he not only works long hours during the weekdays, but he is also asked to show up on some weekends. He wants an internet dongle, the best and the cheapest.
Problem: He has been to several stores and couldn’t decide on any, as he cant evaluate which will give the best speed in his area and will satisfy his needs. Every telecom company claims that it has the best coverage in the area.
Solution: Can a 3rd party unbiased evaluator help Devvrat with his options of obtaining the best internet connection, based on hard empirical data on the network strength and his usage habit?
Consumer 2: Mr. Banerjee, a retired head of a big Indian bank. Lives along with his wife. He is not well versed with technology but would love to make use of it; without taking any pains of maintaining it.
Problem: He damaged his SIM card somehow, but has no clue of how to get a new one. Even if he did, he is too old to be doing the chore.He simply wants to enjoy his latest iphone that his grandson gifted him, the pain of navigating through his dangerous device is enough for him to handle, he wants minimal involvement in running the backend of the services.
Solution: Is there scope for a ‘Man Friday’ to jump in to take care of all his utility issues. A reliable service provider that would bridge the gap between Mr Banerjee and the telecom company.
Consumer 3: Saket Gupta, an accountant at a SME company, he is busy doing data entry, writing cash vouchers and making bills whole day long.
Problem: Not only does Saket manage the accounting department, the poor chap is also busy managing the company’s telephone bills, electricity bills and other subscriptions. Swarmed with so much work, Saket’s efficiency in doing top notch book-keeping is taking a dip.
Solution: A service provided that will take upon all the responsibilities including paying the bills in advance and managing all their requests.
The main point: A business model that would facilitate the communication between the greatly troubled Indian consumer population and the various utility providers.
Speaking as a customer, my issue isn’t really that the service XYZ had a hiccup, but my issue is that the post sales service provided is rubbish and it takes ages to get something fixed. I dont have the time and the patience to deal with it, can someone do it on my behalf. I realize that at the end of the day I cant improve the core services, but can I help consumers ease their pain and save some of their time?
Please please please shower me with all your inputs and the advantages/disadvantages that exist.What assumptions have I taken that will fall flat? Where am I fundamentally flawed? Does this exist? etc etc etc
Hit me what all you’ve got!
Warm Regards,
Arjun Jalan
Image Source: https://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mfl/lowres/mfln610l.jpg
Kamal Kalra
Hi Arjun, Nice point and I agree that you cannot change the world around you.. But I have a few doubts.. may be if you could answer
1) After sales service is a challenge but in order to outsource after sales service ( by a consumer ) it will be a difficult task cos, usually the service providers wants to talk to the account holder only and not the third party. They will not speak to the third party on the consumer’s behalf.
2) Great Indian Consumer is already pissed off with increased inflation, I don’t see anybody paying a penny extra to do such a work. I mean, people expect it’s company’s responsibility to provide after sales service and not a consumer’s challenge.
And moreover, there are a few concierge services available who does the same job ( at times more than just after sales ) for you.
Govind G Prajapati
You can use justdial for you need just call them ask what you need (description or name of your service and preferred area)
and dozens contacts will be given to you as well as they will call you as same notification goes to them too.
Alok Sharma
I 100% agree with your points would like to add more.
1. If person know how use Internet, he can simply google this info. why he would need you. and these providers, provides good service in case of new sales (at least for first time ) so they do everything for sales.
2. for Damage SIM instead of calling you, customer can directly call customer care of service provider.. they can also help the same way you will do.
3. you need to have staff for visiting offices since every thing can be resolved over the phone. will increase your investment and same way you will charge customers. sounds bit expensive .
4. Its actually very difficult to fulfill Indian customer’s demand specially you will deal with customer who can’t handle such services alone, so level would be lower.. so you may soon see many complaints of your own platform.
5. Paying bills is already a easy task since most of the service providers accepting online payment.. why would customer pay you extra for that easy task.
I would say.. there are so many negative views about it but still you cant actually find-out without starting it.. so use your own brains, if you find it feasible then go for it.
Sai Rodinhood Pothuri
Dear Arjun Jalan
For the first time i got a thought, why people think like this?? don’t think in negative way. but what ever the situations you mentioned above are real, but the problem is not a major one. its a small problem and if you want to create a service to solve that small problem will be a big problem to you. My Straight point is leave the theory and lets discuss it on monetary terms, entrepreneur day starts with N number of ideas, plans, numbers etc etc.. what we need to understand is will it work? will this solution is that worth to start ?
I am not degrading your points or your idea, but my suggestion is Think Big.. All the Best
Thanks
Sai
Arjun Jalan
Hi Kamal,
Firstly, thank you your attention.
1) A lot of people do get their work done from other people willing to run around, a darwan, house keeper etc obviously that involves paper authorizations to and fro, but in general you are right, confidentiality is a major roadblock to this.
2) I have not given any thought over what the price point would be. As I said its just a random idea that hit me. I end up doing a lot of the stuff i described in my post for my house anyways, so I thought its worth asking whether people think this is a real pain point.
3) I did not know about that, thank you for the info
Regards,
Arjun Jalan
Arjun Jalan
Thank you alok.
Arjun Jalan
Hi Sai,
While I appreciate your input, I dont quite understand what you mean with ‘negative way’. Their is nothing negative in pin pointing a problem that exists, it is not up for opinion, it is a fact. On the contrary, identifying scalable solutions to definite problems of the masses is innovation.
You are right in what you said about the scalability though, even if this could work, I doubt whether this is scalable.
Regards,
Arjun