My close friend cum colleague dashed to my desk looking agitated. “Dude why don’t you atleast attend to your mobile phone? I’ve been trying to call you from past 25mins. Its good 1 hour 30 mins past our usual tea break time. What has happened to you man”. The sudden twin shocks of being abruptly brought back to the real world and the accusation of not answering to the mobile phone created sudden panic and I was clueless for a moment. My involuntary reflex was that of checking the mobile. I didn’t want to be accused as a workaholic who even forgets to answer his mobile. And the mobile network service provider didn’t let me down either. It was dead. There was no signal. I switched it on and off, took off and inserted the sim, cleaned the dust off over it…in short, I attempted all sorts of manual operations that came to my mind, to make it work. But it didn’t want to help me for 2nd time. There was no sign of the signal getting restored. My friend also tried to do his bit to make it work. But the network refused to enter my mobile. Frustrated, I threw it on my desk and gave a blank look at my friend. He just locked my system, switched off the monitor and dragged me to the cafeteria.
From the next day, as expected, I had to pay several round of visits to the so called “Customer Relationship center” of the service provider. The day1 I visited, the person at the counter checked the sim card and declared it was dead. He informed me to buy the new one which would cost 50 bucks. I was agitated. “Dude, it wasn’t my mistake”. He didn’t care to listen. Upon persistence he bluntly told me that his instruction manual says that every sim should be sold at the cost price of Rs. 50 and he is simply following it. If I’ve any more questions I need to contact regional head. I had to make a decision here. I cannot afford to stay communicatively immobile for so many days as it may take to get the sim card for free from that reginal head. And basically it was not the money that mattered to me. It was my conscience which was telling me that I will have to pay the penalty for no mistake of mine. I paid the money, got the new sim card with an assurance that the connection would get restored in next 4 hrs, and left the center. My heart, brain and all the muscles in my body was filled with so much of anger that, by chance if the regional head happened to appear before me (of course with a placard hanging over his neck declaring that he is the regional head), I would have crushed and melted him under my feet.
From the next day onwards I initiated my fight against the company. I had two complaints – the first one is the issue that I discussed above and the 2nd one was about the assurance “connection will be restored by 4hrs” which in practical took good 1.5 days. Except for the foot note “I will approach consumer court tomorrow”, I don’t really remember what story I wrote in the mail. Promptly a reply came within next 4hrs or so that I will get my 50Rs back in my next month bill. I replied again asking what about the 2nd complaint. There was no response.
The anger had cooled down. Not sure whether it was due to the fact that I would get back my money or whether it was the same old medicine – “TIME” which did the trick. But I lost the zeal to go ahead with my fight. But that didn’t stop thoughts to overflow my mind. How this corporate world would act bullish over its customers. Untill and unless there is high degree of competition, customer concern would hardly fall on any responsible person’s ear in the company. The other day I was reading a news bit on the dissolution of JV between Hero and Honda which had ruled the Indian two wheeler market for decades under the brand name Hero Honda. It seems during 60’s or 70’s, when Hamara Bajaj Scooter became blockbuster hit, the wait period shot upto 12 years for getting one scooter delivered!!!! (Alas, even today you need to wait 90days for an Activa or Unicorn). I wondered what if the customer had passed away or had short term/long term memory loss etc. The person (the then CEO of bajaj) continued saying how the term “Marketing”, “Marketing dept” etc sounded alien for him then. Cut to present – there are loans with EMI as cheap as the cost of one Kg of Onion, ready to help you buy one two wheeler.
Competition does help make the company work efficiently in two areas – 1. Sales(with never-heard-before kind of offers) 2. Service. In one of My previous blog I had mentioned about the story of getting the BSNL phone connection in our home when I was in std 8th. Now, majority of households in India doesn’t have a fixed phone line connection, thanks to the penetration of mobile phones. Though the mobile connection companies were aggressive in sales, they hardly bothered about the service. There main area of security was the fact that 60% of people didn’t want to change their mobile number owing to the difficulties associated with it. And to cash in on the benefit, Airtel started charging 50paise for every 3minutes for talking with their “Customer (un)care Rep”. Thanks to the newly launched MNP service, the mobile companies are listing after-sales services benefits also in their product catalogs. Several ads addressing the common complaints of mobile phone customers have replaced the cola ads in TV now (did you read Idea? What a wrong idea sirji, I never mean to hurt any person/company thru my articles).
My views about competition in any area were too de-motivating. I always pitied the people who will be subjected to the pressure that comes bundled with competition. This was the case until I grew up to stand on my own legs (in Indian terms – to earn and spend your own money). I realized how difficult it is to stay awake with all your eyes open whenever you stepped outside your home to buy something. One small neglect, and you will be made to pay price for it. The pain of seeing your hard earned money getting wasted on wrong things could make your life hell. Thus my views started changing gradually. Competition and Change are the two friends who always walk hand in hand. Both are inevitable by laws of nature!! (Didn’t Homo sapiens win the “survival of fittest” war, to become supreme power species, when god created the universe?). There should be more aggressive campaigns regarding consumer rights. But unlike any other initiatives, this campaigning also will meet the success only if the literacy rate in our country improves. Which again will depend on our political leadership. Which again depends on bureaucracy. Which again depends on…………
