Not Being Sarkari

 

My marriage anniversary was on November 18 and I got a discount coupon from Pizza Hut. I was glad to know that they at least tried to use data which I have filled innumerable times in their outlet. They are not the only ones who gather this data. I have filled such details in almost all places but it was good to know that at least someone used it.

I went to my bank yesterday to operate my locker.

Another toilet improvement requirement story. 

Delhi airport has improved a lot and become a lot more swankier than it was. One of my NRI cousins also gave me this feedback.

But feedback received by airport management companies asks them to improve on certain areas. And guess what tops the list. Toilets.

Travelers want toilets to improve in terms of cleanliness and upkeep. Valid demand.

There are some other suggestions as well like ATM machines, mother-care center, announcements, etc. One suggestion is to have plants inside the airport. Plants? Yes, plants. They should plant trees and we Indians will take care of irrigation ;-)

Shifting focus from Airports to Airlines. Richard Branson (I love this guy and I would love to work for his group) has given an interview in which he has a suggestion for other airlines to stay afloat (apart from taking help from Governments).

On asking what other airlines can learn from Virgin Airline, he quipped. 

I don't really want them to learn anything. I'd be delighted if they carried on exactly as they are. They basically should get out a clean white sheet of paper and start again. Most of them are beyond repair. They got far too big and have management groups that don't care about customer service. The experience the traveling public gets on those other carriers is pretty dire.

Continue with your layers. Add more layers. Still not enough, add more layers. Increase your distance from customers. Let customers suffer while you pocket huge salaries. And when customers start ditching you, you run to Government for bailout.

Here goes my five goof ups which if used can definitely result into customer defection.

Do Not Take Care of Your Language - Do not use language which brings out courteous personality of yours. Use lot of words like 'obvious' which shows your are arrogant, unfriendly and rude.

Do not call back your customers - Do not want to take customer's call. No problem. Just tell him 'I will call you back' and keep the phone down. Do this time and again and customer will stop calling you forever. 'I will call you back' is most over-used goli given to customers. You should also try sometime, it will surely work as it is tried and tested.

Make the customer follow up - Do not want to help a customer? Ask him to follow the 'follow-up loop'. Ask him to visit again and again and again and again. He will surely loose his patience someday and that would be the last time he will bother you.

Advertise sales without details - Tell the whole world with a full page advertisement that you are coming out with a huge sale. Just keep your terms and conditions so small that it can be read only by microscopes. Let customer come to you running, fill his shopping trolley and spend 40 minutes in billing. Then hit him with a hammer called terms and conditions. He will dump his shopping trolley on billing station and will never comeback (till he sees next sales advertisement of yours).   

Keep yourself busy on phone - Posted at front-end of some business and do not want to attend any customers. Get busy on phone. Its simple. Pretend it is the most important call of your life and customer will understand and go away. You know customer is an understanding species.

Try these above mentioned steps and I assure that you will an have endless list of customers who are fed up with you. Probably, yours will be the last place that they would like to visit

Today is World Toilet Day. I have always believed that toilets plays an important part in customer service.

Poor toilets gives an impression about the way one runs his whole business. If someone can ignore such an important service entity, he can ignore other important aspects of service as well. Or if someone can show casual attitude towards poor service in one area, he can spill this casualness to other important service areas as well. Poor ingreidents, poor staff mannerisms etc. You guys know well.

However, toilet in India is a forgotten entity. Businesses running with stinking toilets, shabby toilets, toilets with broken seats can be found in abundance.

Zoobie and me travel a lot. And road is our preferred mode of travel. While on road, we look out for eating joints which have decent toilets. At times, we succeed. On other instances, we continue to travel endless till we find a decent one. In case, our full bladders fail to stop the outflow, there are always green fields looking for irrigation.

Most frequently travelled road is National Highway 1 which connects Delhi - Ambala. On this road we know couple of dhabas (or diners) which serve traditional and delicious food (paranthas, pakoras, dal-roti etc) but have pathetic toilets. Then, there are certain joints which house foreign brands (Dominos, Costa Coffee, McDonalds etc) and have clean toilets. But I do not enjoy this food much. There usually is a dilemma, where to stop.

To overcome this dilemma, we decided to stop twice. One is our pet-puja stop wherein we eat food which we really like and another is pee stop where we prefer to take a bio-break. Our travelling time increases by 15 minutes with this arrangement but this works well for us.

Is anyone tracking, how many customers are only stopping for pee-break? Just thinking...Anyway, Happy World Toilet Day. Hopefully, we will have a lot more cleaner toilets in future.

Receiving regular sales call from sales representatives of banks, offering credit cards, loans is regular chore for most of us. As for me, I always encounter a lady (different always) with uninspiring sound and lazy attitude trying to do some mundane chore which is thrusted upon her.