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Showing newest posts with label Customer Complaints. Show older posts
Showing newest posts with label Customer Complaints. Show older posts

Tata Motors taking me for ride.

Tata Motors is absolutely taking me for ride. Literally!!

I have booked Tata Manza Saffire (Silver color) from Goyal Motors, Patiala. I was promised a delivery of vehicle in 20-25 days, which comes to March 24, 2010.
Well, the stipulated time period is about to elapse and I am yet to get a call from your dealer (which for me represents the company), and that when they have taken booking amount from me.

Nonetheless, I called up Salesman (Robin) to confirm the delivery of the vehicle but to my amazement, he was clueless about the delivery date. I called him 3-4 times and every time he told that he has to confirm it from his senior. In my fourth call,  I urged him strongly to inform me about delivery date. Then he put me to some team leader (Sandeep Puri). He was equally clueless and gave me some excuses of non-availability of car on the said delivery date. Then I requested him for the next earliest delivery date but he said that he will call me in exactly one hour to give me a confirmation. That one hour never passed.

After making five calls and spending almost 30 minutes on phone, with their salesman, I was able to get a delivery date for my vehicle.

After struggling to get delivery date from saleman (Robin), I am now struggling to get my car. Saleman assured me that I will get my desired car in my desired color on March 25.

Then on the morning of March 25, Salesman again called that he cannot give me a car in Silver color. Only car that is available is in White color, take it or leave it. My choice. He passed on the phone to his superior, Mr Bhupinder Singh (apparently branch manager), who also arrogantly told me that they cannot do much and this is the only car available and I can take it or leave it. 

Are we going back to Ford era?

Contacting Tata Customer Service is another obstacle race. There are fancy customer care pages all over their website but you cannot actually find any email id wherein you can lodge your complaint. They have comment box on their website but it restricts complaint to only 1000 words.

On one hand we have Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, who flaunts his email ID like his iPhone and on another we have India's most respected group which does not even give email ID of its customer support.

I called call centre number on their website. A polite person gave me the number of Regional Manager (Karun Grover). I called him and he transferred my call to someone who further gave the phone to one  of his colleagues (Shivangi). She promised me to give some solution in a couple of hours. She did call me as promised but with no solution. She gave me a dhobi list of reasons and problems why it cannot be done. She wanted me to settle for some other color but why? I chose this color after a lot of deliberation and I want only this color. 

Such pathetic service from a brand which makes India proud in designing Nano. I think Tata Motors feel that Indian common man will be happy to get cars at cheap prices and customer service can be compromised. But I think this is not true. Times are changing. Product development can be copied easily, but good customer service can go a long way in making a brand indispensable. I think I just made the biggest mistake of my life by booking a car with Tata Motors. I am not sure if I am unlucky or it is part of Tata Motors DNA.

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Tata Motors Blooper on Customer Service

 
Dear Various Teams at Tata Motors,

Team at Tata Motors have done commendable job in designing low cost yet beautiful Nano. They have also done great job in turning around JLR. Team has also done some commendable job in making efficient and spacious cars like Indica and Indigo. Great work by every member of this team.

But they faltered at one place. It is not their fault actually because committing this fault requires less of brain. They have faltered in designing customer contact support form.
 
 
 
The above form is available on Tata Motors website wherein customers can voice their concerns, submit their complaints and give some suggestions to top management.

However, they have committed one mistake in this form. Mandatory field is Registration Number of car as issued by state governments once customer owns a car not before that. Now in ‘complaint area’ dropdown, there options of pre-sales and delivery. If a prospective customers has any issue with pre-sales process of the company, how is he supposed to fill in registration number. If customer has some problem in getting the delivery of his vehicles from Tata dealer, how is he supposed to put registration number of car.

I have absolutely no clue.

It seems this page is designed by some IT geek, who gave live demo to a guy sitting in a cabin wearing a suit and tie and sitting away from real action happening on ground.

I showed this blooper to some of my colleagues and their first reaction was ‘This link looks like a formality from Tata Motors’. I decided to validate their statement and posted a complaint from their ‘Contact Us’ form. And waiting to see whether I will get some kind of response or not. Will keep you updated.

I really wish someone from the team, who regularly interacts with customers and is aware of things that are happening on ground, have used this form diligently before rushing it to on their website.

I hope it gets rectified before more customers like me start encountering this strong wall, which makes customer feedback process difficult.

PS: - Yes, I am having problem with Tata Motors delivery process and a stinking post on their shoddy customer service is just brewing up.

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Real Time Reviews - Trend for 2010



Zoobie posted a feedback regarding a restaurant on Facebook. 
 
Customers set up a website to protest against faulty Time Machine Capsule.
 
I blogged, tweeted, reviewed,facebooked regarding my poor service experience rendered by IFB.
 
Dell hell blog post rocked Dell customer service in 2005. A prolific blogger wrote few posts over 20 days before Dell look into his problem. But that sounds too 2005-ish. These days Real Time Reviews (RTR) are in.
 
Real Time Reviews of products, services, by users and customers will be one of the trends to look out for in 2010. Real Time Reviews are already a rage. Tools like Twitter, Blogs and Facebook are fuelling this trend.
 
These real time reviews spread like a forest fire. Tweets get re-tweeted. Facebook status get comments. Blogs unite customers with same issues.
 
But bigger problem is most of the customer service departments in India are not ready for this RTR onslaught. They still believe in surveys which are meticulosly designed and carried. They still believe in good olds ways of structured feedback wherein feedback forms are given, feedback comes to customer service department, then it goes to respective departments, who act on it and reverts to customer service department who then get backs to customers. Phew! Too many layers to encounter.
 
I really wish customer had patience to go through so many layers. Trendwatching has come out with top 10 trends for 2010.

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Another Improve-Toilet-Story and More...



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.

Your competitors know your future. Unfortunately, you do not. 

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Hit at the Top




Want a resolution for your complaint? Hit at the top.

My friend experienced a bad service from one of the leading telecom players in India. He had an internet connection which he wanted to disconnect. He paid bills and cleared all his dues. But the company forgot to disconnect his services.

They kept sending him bills. He responded them by writing mails to customer service to clarify issues. But he continued to receive bills. Then he started receiving threatening calls from their collection agencies. He clarified again to everyone and showed them necessary documents.

Nothing happened. Threats continued followed by a legal notice. Frustrated by all this treatment, he decided to bypass the whole system. He already knows that employees are against customers. He observed that departments inside the company are working in silos and do not communicate with each other. To resolve his issue, he wrote a complaint to the company CEO (yours truly's advise).

Thankfully after three days,  he received a call from the CEO's office. The guy apologized and closed the issue. My friend heaved a big sigh of relief.

Moral of the story - Do not believe in company's customer service. Do not believe that company's processes are designed to help customer's cause. Do not believe in assurances given by employees. Hit at the top. Nobody bothers more than the boss.

I experience it lot. I, being in customer service department for the last three years, have observed that complaints coming from our Chairman's office receive highest attention. We forget everything else and go all out to please that complaining customer.

Letter from the top just helps us to shrug off our chalta hai attitude and remind us that customer is still the king. I know this is wrong on our parts but unfortunately that's how the whole thing works.

Usually, hit at the top works.

Hit at the top = complaint resolution.
Hit at the top = employee attention.
Hit at the top = peace of mind.

Next time when you receive poor customer service, you know what to do.

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Ten Customer Service Tips





  1. Show respect.
  2. Show more respect.
  3. Show more respect when in good mood.
  4. Show (even) more respect when in bad mood.
  5. Show respect everyday
  6. Show respect to elders
  7. Show respect to kids
  8. Show respect to all customers
  9. Show respect all day
  10. Feel proud when you show respect

Showing respect worked for me, well almost. It should work for you as well.

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Enjoying Journey and Reaching Destination



 
Today I attended a pasta cooking session. I love cooking and keep on trying new dishes regularly. So, this pasta session was a logical thing for me to attend.
 
More than pasta, I was amazed the way chef conducted the session. Whole cooking session was made lively by the chef, who was not afraid of licking his fingers in front of the crowd. He was cool, informal, enthusiastic and knew his stuff thoroughly.
 
Chef regularly involved in conversations while preparation was underway. There were hardly moments of awkward silence during the cooking session. He used his time effectively to build relationships with audience. Though, chef was representing a pasta company, he hardly spoke about his pasta. He concentrated only on the cooking techniques of pasta. Educating customers and building relationship was his priority. His spotlight was on audience and not on himself or his product.
 
In a nutshell, he ensured that people enjoy the journey before reaching the destination. He made sure that people thoroughly enjoyed this journey.
 
I guess this an important principle in customer service. Most of the time, we customer service professionals concentrate on resolutions. We hardly pay attention on making that journey smooth for the customer. We are so engrossed in our processes that we usually forget about the person standing in front of us, who actually pays our paycheck. I guess if we can spend sometime on making that journey smooth, customer might decide to stay back and do business with us after his problem is resolved.
 
We usually put more stakes on reaching the destination than enjoying the journey. It is human nature.  

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Twitter and customer service #2

Another customer service story where twitter helped in complaint resolution.

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, twitter is an excellent customer service tool and usually, the response is prompt. A major reason for this is that the organizations fear that bad word of mouth will spread faster as followers tend to spread news faster than expected.

Another reason is that it is being used as a new medium for interacting with customers and hence, top honchos are monitoring its regular performance. Spotlight is on experiments happening via social media tools. Some companies have integrated these with their overall marketing strategy but most of the organizations are still experimenting with these new found toys.

Twitter is also cheaper to implement as service is free and all you need is someone who can monitor it regularly. But the big question is, whether the person monitoring servetweets (my short for customer service tweets) is trying to know about customers. Is he trying to strike meaningful conversation with customer? Is he trying enough to engage with customer so that a long lasting relationship can be build? Or he is just trying to maintain his SLAs of answering maximum tweets in a minute?

Call centers also failed to engage with customers. Initially, call centers had fair amount of success in resolving customer complaints and reducing costs. But it failed where it mattered most. Building relationships. Moreover, once processes set in and call centers become a 'customer service must' for every organization, they were the biggest reason for dissatisfied customers.

As I have argued earlier, once process sets in, servetweets will also stop bearing satisfactory results. One should also understand that as expectations from servetweets are growing, it will be hard for teams managing servetweets to fulfill expectations. They are bound to feel the pressure and lets hope they do not crumble under pressure.

It is a matter of time before we start hearing complaints via twitter going unanswered as well.

Anyways, just remember you heard this first over here.

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Lucky Customer



 
 
You are a lucky customer if your complaint gets resolved (after numerous attempts) because of twitter.

You are a lucky customer if you are sticking to the same retailer and his grenade of bad policies have not exploded on you.

You are a lucky customer if seller has tried to earn some customer respect by his deeds and not only by words.

You are a lucky customer if you are not one those 99 customers who got punished by irrelevant return policy to nail one guilty shopper.

You are a lucky customer if no customer service tragedy has struck you.
 
How many such lucky customers are there? I hope this is not one of many extinct species.

 

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Conversations are on...always





Customers talk. And , they talk in every possible forum available to them. Facebook. Twitter. Parties. Blogs. Everywhere. You think of a place and probably a conversation will be going around about good or bad customer experiences.

Apple is generally known for providing great customer experience. But they are also not perfect. Apparently, Time Capasule (a Wi-Fi router which also backs up your data) dies after 18 months. Customers are writing to Apple about this faulty product line. Though products are covered under Apple extended warranty plan but that is not enough for Apple fans. These fans do not want that their product to go bad at first place.

Anyways, fans of Apple, who go out of way to show their affection for Apple and its products, have now taken an off-beat route to protest. Fans have setup a website which mourns the death of Time Capsule and all dead Time Capsules can R.I.P. together on this website. So far, 178 owners have registered their dead Time Capsules on this site.

Unfortunately, there is no R.I.P. for conversations around good and bad experiences.

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United breaks the guitar

This video is funny and highlight the poor customer service rendered by United Airlines. Dave's guitar was broken by United Airlines staff and airline refused to give repair charges to him. He followed with airlines for close to nine months and then hit upon the idea of recording songs about his ordeal and put it on YouTube.com. Song became instant hit.



After the damage has done, United Airlines budged. They have also decided to include this video as a training module.

I think they are little late in accepting their mistake and damage has already been done.

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Making it easier of customers

 

Today I went to a Café Coffee Day (CCD) for a cup of coffee with a friend. On entering, I saw a customer shouting at cashier. Being a customer service person, curiosity of what happened and how cashier is going to handle the whole situation, I went straight to the billing counter. As the story unfolds, there were two reasons why customer was irate:

  1. Customer ordered coffee and he was not given any bill.
  2. Customer waited for over an hour for his order but he was not served. Reason – service people forgot to process his order.
Customer wanted to speak to someone senior. Cashier reluctantly provided number but he was not picking up the phone. Customer wanted to register a complaint but there was not complaint register. After observing the whole episode, I thought CCD has failed to implement some basic steps of customer service.

According to a study, 96% of the customers do not complain at all and they simply shift to another service provider. And customers who complains they actually committed to the brand. CCD should make it easier for the customers to complain or give feedback. This can be done

  • By providing complaint/feedback book at the cafĂ©
  • Phone numbers of customer service/senior managers should be displayed
  • Feedback/suggestion forms should be available
  • Email address where customer can register his concerns
It is not necessary to implement all the above mentioned steps but make sure what ever steps are put in place, they should be followed religiously. Acting on the feedback is also important and that will be discussed in some other post.

Regarding my coffee, CCD forgot to process my order as well. I guess it was a bad day for them.

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Satisfied customer is an asset

My friend Raj got his Hyundai car serviced by one of the authorised service centre. He was not happy as fault was not fully repaired. He wrote a mail complaining about his concerns.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Unsatisfactory Repair Services_Safdarjang Hyundai
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:15:24 +0530 (IST)
From: Raj Rohlania
To: cr@hmil.net
CC: rohlania

Dear Sir/Ma'am,

1. It is submitted that I am the user of ELANTRA No HR 24 H ****, and have been patronising your dealer Safdarjang Hyundai (Gurgaon-Haryana) for last 2 1/2 years.

2. I reported for periodic maintenance on 29 Dec 2008 to your dealer and incurred a bill of Rs 8750/-. THERE AFTER, THE VEHICLE DEVELOPED STARTING TROUBLE IN COLD START AND LONGER SELF REQUIREMENT FOR THE DAY. I again visited your workshop on 01 Jan 2009 and reported the defect that after servicing, vehicle is giving starting trouble. HEATING PLUGS were changed @ Rs 7779/- and was told that the problem is due to COLD CLIMATIC conditions. However, the problem persisted and I reported the same to customer care department once they contacted me to find if I was satisfied with the repair services.

3. On a long outdoor journey on 02 Jan 2009, I found vehicle chocking and giving abnormally low mileage. As an immediate help, I decided to have the vehicle checked at WAY SIDE REPAIR SHOP dealing with Diesel engines. Within a minute he identified the problem as that of leakage of DIESEL PIPE from the diesel filter. He cut out the leaking portion and re fixed the pipe. THERE HAS BEEN NO STARTING TROUBLES SINCE THEN. On my querry as to the cause of this leakage, he explained that probably during routine servicing, the pipe got damaged. He further clarified that my starting troubles were not due to heating plugs but due to leaking pipe.

4. The words of way side mechanic are believable for the simple reason that had the problem been with heating plugs, it would have been resolved when new ones were fitted. But it persisted despite new heating plugs.

5. In light of the above, I have a serious apprehension that your Safdarjang Motors (dealer) repair service capabilities are seriously suspected. Their wrong advice not only caused me loose Rs 7779/- and also the mental agony and hardship of taking vehicle to them repeatedly.

6. On 15 Feb 09, I visited your dealer and had given a written report - THEY DID NOT HAVE CUSTOMER CARE FEEDBACK REGISTER (as claimed by customer care deptt)

6. Overall, do I conclude that the technical capabilities of way side service shops are more than that of your authorised dealer ?

7. You may like to re evaluate technical expertise of your safdarjang motors (your dealers).

8. Please care to reply - I shall feel obliged.


Thanks and regards


Raj Vijay Rohlania
In reply, he got a promotional email. Yes, believe me.

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "HYUNDAI"
To: "raj rohlania"
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 2:43:00 AM GMT +05:30 Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi
Subject: Avail Free Checkup & great offers for your Hyundai Car


Dear Customer,
Greetings from "HYUNDAI MOTOR INDIA"
Celebrate your festival with Hyundai
Thanking and Assuring you of our Best services at all times
With Warm regards & best Wishes
HYUNDAI MOTOR INDIA LTD.
(24x7 TOLL FREE NO. 1-800-11-4645)
MOBILE NO. 09873***645


He did not get solution but a promotional email. He did not get an apology mail but a promotional email. He did not get any kind of commitment of resolution of his problem but a promotional email.

Raj broke his association (No prizes for guessing) with Hyundai by writing an email.

From: Raj Rohlania
Subject: [Fwd: Unsatisfactory Repair Services_Safdarjang Hyundai]
To: cr@hmil.net
Cc: rohlania@*****.co.in
Date: Friday, 20 March, 2009, 4:01 PM

Dear Sir/ Madam,

My trailing mail remains unanswered till date - however, I have started getting your promotional mails.

Request do not send me any promotional mail as I am no longer interested in your products for the reason that you do not think it fit to care for your customers.

Thanks and Regards

Raj Rohlania
After the above email, he got a phone call from service center after his second mail. They were apologizing and wanted to go any lengths to resolve his concern But it was too late. Raj got his car repaired from somewhere else and he does not want any association with Hyundai.

A satisfied customer is an asset to a company because:
  • He will spread positive word of mouth about company and its products
  • He is less sensitive to price changes
  • He will upgrade himself to new products (as and when launched) of companies
  • He will pay less attention to competitors products
But Hyundai service center does not care about this. And Hyundai lost a customer.

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Responding to Customer Complaint...


"People expect good service but few are willing to give it."
Robert Gately



Delhi traffic police helpline receives lot of complaints but aam janta always feel that their issues are never resolved by police. However, a fact was revealed by Traffic Police Commissioner in a radio interview that all complaints are acted upon but the complainant is never informed.

They are missing one important angle of feedback process - response to the customer. Response to customer complaint is as important as resolution of the complaint.

If Delhi Traffic Police starts responding to janta complaints, their reputation will improve and they would be able to build better relationships with people (which may not their priority!).

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Never leave customer complaint unattended...



"He profits, most who serves best."
Arthur F. Sheldon


Written about responding to customers complaint in my last post. Read a complaint against newly launch BIG TV. Complaint is unattended for 6 days. Customer paid in advance for DTH service but service has not started yesterday. Complaint goes like this...

"Reliance Big TV has one of the worst customer service I have ever seen in my life. The 1-800 call center no does not work, the installation did not happen even after 6 days of buying the STB and despite me calling the Bombay call center no (022-30338888) mutltiple times on multiple days, the cal center guys are totally inexperienced and just do not have answers to the problem."

This is not a good sign for a new business as ignoring customer complaints will brand them as a company which does not care for customers. Unattended customer complaints are like silent bombs which are waiting to explode.

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