I do not celebrate Valentine’s day. I do not give any gifts to my wife. Infact, I do not look forward to this day to show my love. I just do
it – anyday, anytime.
While love is a driving quotient of this festival of sorts, I also understand the business reason behind this widely celebrated day around the world.
Unfortunately, business’s themselves fail to see the reason and meaning of this day.
If it is about love and care, I find most businesses grossly wanting on this front.
And this observation is the result of the experience I have had over the last many years of being a consumer of various kinds of goods and services.
Telecom, internet, insurance, mutual funds, consumer durables, you name it and I have been treated shabbily despite the fact that I was the one who was parting with my hard earned money to them.
A couple of instances are in order.
TIKONA wireless internet – Probably my worst experience so far. They gave me a useless connection which I could hardly use given the ‘stupendous’ speed they offered. Despite my several requests and complaints, they could not do anything about it and finally within 2 months when I told them to disconnect, they took it out on me royally. They generate bills in advance and before the next billing cycle could begin, I send them a note saying I do not want to continue. They still raised the bill and sent it to me which I contested. But I think I was just moved from one bucket to another (soft to hard, those familiar with collections will understand) until the hard collection agents made my life hell and finally after that I got a call saying I was being sent a legal notice. Woah! I am determined to not let them go off easily.
TATA GENERAL INSURANCE with whom I had an accident policy for a few years suddenly decided not to have me as their customer. This despite the fact that I had made no claims and had diligently renewed every year in time. This time they never contacted me. Infact, I was the one who was getting in touch with them all the time but to no avail. After a few months, I reminded them again to renew my policy. All the customer care guy had to say was that my policy had lapsed and I would have to buy a new one. Also, I would be treated as a new customer and no benefits of the previous policy would be available to me. I still asked for a call to buy a new one. I am still waiting for the call.
State Bank of India – I think it is the only bank in the country which charges the customer for requesting an online password. Who does not forget, but SBI knows how to milk the forgetfulness? I am not sure why like others they could not build a facility on their website to regenerate a new PIN or password. And of course, they pestered me to buy a insurance policy with my home loan. I didn’t.
These are organisations which I believe are manned by some of the finest brains. I am sure all of them have learnt some time that an existing customer is far worth more than a new one. But they continue to act in the opposite way.
Their email ids may say “customer care” but there are only standard scripts and little care.
It is just about numbers now.
I Love You
I see this “business of care” as the very opportunity for start-ups to create massive differentiation and profits. I would love to say to a business provider – “I love you”.
I am making this humble attempt in my venture in executive education with www.learninginfinite.com.
And, by the way, if you have been able to say your love to any business or have one of your own, pls do share.
This post originally appeared on Learning Infinite Blog.
Image courtesy: zazzle.com
Mandar Joshi
Hi Vipin Liked the post and I totally agree with you that today’s businesses are surviving only because their customers are not demanding. I have always defined businesses in two types those who are growing by design and those who are growing by default. All the businesses mentioned by you are growing by default as there is huge demand for their services and being the most populace consumer country they are getting customers despite of all these service related problems. Finally businesses are run by people and if unfortunately people recruited and deployed by these companies are not passionate about what they do, they don’t understand that customer is their Master and he can fire them anytime however as I mentioned before for one disgruntled lost customer they get ten new innocent customers so no one bothers 🙂 By the way I also visited your portal and liked the concept have already registered myself and enjoying the content. Please share your mail ID so that we can discuss few things offline ( e Learning is my passion so I also have some ideas which I would love to discuss with you ) Once again thanks for the post !!!!! Keep Rodinhooding !!!!
Vipin Khandelwal
Hi Mandar,
You have nailed it in your comments.
Happy to know that you share the passion for learning. Would love to hear from you at vipin (at) learninginfinite (dot) com.
Thanks again.
Smridhi Khemka
Hi Vipin,
Please explain what kind of charges you paid for password reset in SBI.
Secondly, the insurance is for the benefit of the customer only. In case of sudden demise of the borrower, the bereaved family is not burdened with the loan liability.
Regards,
Smridhi Khemka
SBI
Sudhanshu Bhadani
Hi Vipin…good post to read….but i have one doubt about your statement for SBI….I work in SBI and would like to state that we do not charge anything for resetting or reissuing passwords for Internet banking, but yes we do charge Rs 50 for reissuing password for ATM cards and thats because those passwords are sent through post to our branch, the entire process of generating the password and sending it by post costs us a bit, but your post has one important advice for us to build the facility in the website to regenerate the password there itself…..will try to escalate your advice to our bosses.
Vipin Khandelwal
Dear Sudhanshu
Thanks. I am glad to see your reply and the recognition of the fact that this basic service needs to be there.
And yes, I was charged Rs. 50 for issuing an “Online banking” password not an ATM password.
Vipin Khandelwal
Hi Smridhi
I hope I didn’t get you upset 😉
Just replied below about the password. Thanks.
Sudhanshu Bhadani
Vipin There is no charge for issuing password for online banking in SBI and its surprising to see that a branch is charging for the same. INB and other alternate channels like ATM and mobile banking etc are helpful for the customers as well as for employees of the bank as it reduces footfall in the branch and thus we can provide better customer service so we do not charge for them, dont know why that branch made you pay, and yes we do insist customers to take insurance if they are taking loans, reason being there are many cases where the loan is becoming non performing and thus bank has to face losses. Sometime these loans become NPA because of the death of borrower and in this case it becomes very difficult to recover the dues as the family itself is in grief and might be facing financial problems after the death of the borrower, if the borrower had taken insurance then we can easily recover the dues from the insurance company without giving any tension to the family members. It might also provide some financial help to the family, but yes these insurance policies are purely optional and its upto the borrower weather they wanna take them or not.