Mauka Mauka

We all were intrigued by the Mauka Mauka ads during the World Cup 2015 right? It was downright entertaining. Wasn’t it? But what was the message the ads were trying to show?

India has defeated Pakistan in all their world cup encounters till date. But there was hope, another encounter was scheduled – will it be Pakistan’s mauka to turn the tables. People in Pakistan wanted to give their national team another chance to prove that they can beat their arch rivals in the World Cup as well. Though they have not been successful till date, yet the citizens believed in them and the team does try their best to live up to their expectations. Though their campaign against India was unsuccessful, and they will have to return to try the same 4 years later – another chance?

In today’s modern digital friendly world, when everything is at our finger tips, all the world’s app, world’s products and world’s services – we all want world class services; but are not willing to have the time, patience and spend the money for it. We want everything to be perfect and everything on our terms.

If the Food Panda delivery is a minute late, we tweet about it. If the flipkart has sent you stones in place of a mobile phone, we instagram it. If the ola cab charges a hiked rate, we facebook it. And then we have that million dollar line following it – ‘Will never use it again’, recommending all our friends as well to never use the app. Aren’t we all being just cynical about everything that goes minutely wrong with these startups?

A Vodafone overbilling, a little less mayo in your McD burger, a delayed flight take off – everything needs to be posted on social media right? I do that to at times, but is it the best approach always. Are we just being too critical, are we expecting perfection in everything? Agreed that we have paid for it and we expect the best service but are we so closed minded that we are not open to occasional lapses?

There have been instances of iPhone not working smoothly at times, windows crashing, cars breaking down – these have been around since years and are MNC’s. We don’t judge them based on one such rare instance, then why homegrown Indian startups. Even they’ll get there in a while from now. Give them your support not your curse.

At anytime you may check your FB or twitter timeline, you’ll find 9 negative comments and if you’re lucky – one positive experience. If we so openly share the bad experiences then we should also share the nice time we have had with them.  But maybe we do not do them because they do not give us enough likes, shares, retweets or comments? So our posts are worth the news channel TRP’s eh?

And then the readers look at one side of the story and take a stand. Even as per Indian laws, a person is innocent till proven guilty. But in today’s world – social media becomes a 24/7 court where judgements are delivered based on what you hear and see and not what the reality is. We forget that every story has 3 sides – the side you read, the other side of the story and most importantly the right side.

Have we already forgotten the Amul milk fiasco a few months back? We have no idea which side of the story is true but everything was vented out on social media and was available for public consumption at large and people took sides based on what they saw, read and heard.

So I want to share some of the instances I have in recent times:

a)      There have been instances of Make My Trip (MMT) spoiling a person’s vacation. I use MMT very frequently. There have been instances when I have booked a hotel and later been informed that the hotel is sold out for the day. MMT has gone out and found alternative arrangements on an immediate basis and even upgraded me on the spot without leaving me stranded without shelling out an additional buck. And that was once in using them multiple times over the past few months.

b)      People crib about Ola overcharging them and minting money by cheating them and stuff. I am an Ola fan. I have had a couple bad instances wherein the driver has refused or maybe charged for a trip not taken. But the response from the Ola team is immediate. Another cab is arranged, the money immediately refunded to my Ola money account.

c)       I recently ordered from HolaChef and inspite of making the payment the order was apparently not processed and hence not delivered. I called and tweeted to them about it. And they immediately swung into action to have the order delivered or money refunded.

What we forget is that all these are aggregators. They do not hold or control the inventory. They are influencers. Some of the vendors on board realize the value and potential and adhere to the policies – some of them don’t. They put in a lot of effort to standarise all these services to improve our experience and sometimes fuck ups do happen which many a times would not be their fault – it is the vendor on board who has messed it up. Yes, as a brand, being the initial point of contact they are responsible for the best in class services and they do strive to do them. While at work haven’t we also fucked up at times only to be covered by a colleague and improved and been extra cautious from next time onwards?

Don’t judge them based on one bad experience. If they’re willing to learn from their mistakes, they apologize, take corrective actions, and help make it up to you – Give them another chance. They deserve it. These startups are here to serve you to make your life better. They are not there because they enjoy messing around with you. Shit happens.

Applaud them when they work hard to ease your daily life chores. Hasn’t Ola and Uber made commuting within the city easier without being fleeced by the local cabbies? Hasn’t MMT and Ibibo made travel lot more easier without bargaining with the local travel agent? Hasn’t foodpanda and tinyowl brought all the delicacies from your area to your home without having dozens of menucards?

Can we all just share our feedback with them and help them improve to a world class service. It’s their aim to be there and we can play a small role in helping them get there. We forget that it is the survival of the fittest and if they tread the wrong path they’ll be down the roller coaster ride even before you can blink your eyes. We all know the number of startups that shut shop every day.

Give them another ‘Mauka’. We can atleast do that much for them. Can we not?

Disclaimer: I personally have no association of any kinds with any of the brands mentioned herein above or their competitors and the above is a completely regular next door consumer perspective.

Originally posted on SimplySoch

You can follow me @simply_hardik