Lessons Life Teaches - II

All of us have been customers for a variety of organisations for a variety of household and electronic goods. Randomly, if a poll is taken then most of the people will express their dis-satisfaction on the quality of services being met out to them. The reasons can be genuine or otherwise.

I would like to share a couple of incidents that taught be some valuable lessons in customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Again some examples of lessons that life teaches for one to perform better in our own professional life.

In the recent past, I received a call from a major insurance company. The insurance company had outsourced their tele-calling services to tap potential customers. I received the call from one such tele-caller. After the general round of introductions, I was detailed about a new policy that the company had launched. Then the usual round of questions started... What is my age? Hearing my age, he started addressing me as Mrs. Deepa. I ignored it and continued answering the questions....... Am I working? Where am I working? What is my monthly income? Am I married? ..... Now the last question was a little meaningless since he had already decided that I was married and was addressing me as Mrs. But my answer surprised him. I told him I was un-married. His shock at the fact was evident from his tone and the fact that he double-checked my age too. To make things even worse, he asked me who the decision maker in my family was? I was surprised at the question but I avoided it. But his insistence proved inflamatory to me as a potential customer. Looking at the fact that I was avoiding him, he made the last mistake.... he kept down the phone on me. And they lost a couple of potential customers forever........ and i hope they would loose a couple of more customers..... those who are reading this blog or those to whom I have narrated the story.

In a few words..... the quality of the phone call was dismal and un-professional to the extreme.

Lessons learnt:

1) Choose people who interact with customers carefully.
2) Train customer facing people with the utmost care.
3) Cultural sensitization has its own advantages. It should be practiced.
4) Be polite... be polite.... be polite.
5) Know how to end a conversation.
6) Do not, in any way, insult the customer.

Having been a part of the service industry for a very long time now I have had the opportunity to attend some soft skill workshops to handle our customers .... like Dealing with Difficult People. In this case, I was the one practicing my skills of 'Dealing with Difficult People' instead of the other way round..... ;-P.

Another incident that taught me a few valuable lessons happened with my sister. For making a trip to Delhi from Bangalore, she had made use of the e-booking facilities of a well known and well advertised travel house to book return flight tickets to Bangalore. Since she got the similar job opportunity in Delhi itself, she called up the travel house to cancel her return tickets to Bangalore. She was not given a transaction-id number since the computer systems there were not working properly. The next day she called up the travel house again and confirmed whether her tickets had been cancelled. This time round she was given a transaction id and assured that her tickets had been cancelled. Next month, she was surprised to find out that she had been billed the entire ticket amount since she had not cancelled the ticket. She kept on following up with the travel house for a month. Every time she spoke to a new executive and had to repeat her concern again and again and again. But without any solution. Inspite of repeated requests, she was not put through to the manager. Her mails to the manager too went un-answered. Finally, she landed up paying for the tickets that she had taken care to cancel and be penalised for not having any more reasons to go back to Bangalore.

In a few words..... the quality of the service was dismal and un-professional to the extreme.

Lessons Learnt:

1) Maintain records of customer interaction
2) Ensure that you give an empathetic reply to a concerned customer
3) Ensure that the customer is not the one to pay for the mistakes that the customer had not made.... financially or otherwise
4) Be open and tell the truth to the customer. That would save the customer a lot of hassles.
5) Follow-up with the customer in case the query remains un-resolved instead of the other way round
6) Stick to the deadlines / committments that you have made to the customer.

In short.... Life is a good teacher. You should know how to learn from it.

Lessons Life Teaches - I

Any executive working in any type of service industry learns that there are certain business etiquettes to follow to keep the customers satisfied which ensures a long, happy and prosperous career. Years of study and hard work does not ensure that we start off our professional lives with ease. Neither does it ensure that working according to our learned behavior would ensure continued professional life.

Being in the service industry requires the individual to have a very high ‘learn ability’ factor to start and survive in the industry. Obviously some of the behavior is gained through osmosis peers and leaders in the trade. But we consider ourselves lucky to be able to attend knowledge transfer workshops conducted by the best in the business. Business houses spend quite a bit of money to make all of us ‘customer savvy’. There have been proper disciplines established in the course of many years and there are specialized institutes that teach us these skills – skills that we have to willingly or un-willingly learn in order to survive in the industry.

After attending one such session I was enthusiastically telling my father as to what I have learned. In summary, I told him the following things are necessary to achieve a high degree of customer satisfaction:

1) ‘LISTEN’ to what the customer has to say. He might tell you what all he has already tried out and failed. This would reduce the time that you take to resolve the issue.
2) Be ‘EMPATHETIC’ instead of ‘SYMPATHETIC’
3) Follow up to ensure that the issue has been resolved in its totality. This guarantees customer satisfaction.
4) Put forward suggestions to the customer, where ever applicable, to prevent future occurrences of the issue.

Both of us had a long and fruitful discussion on the topic which left me completely satisfied and contented in the fact that I have learnt something useful that day. While we were having our discussion, we were being interrupted by our regular mason who had just finished renovating our home. He had come again to address a complaint lodged by my father for the newly installed taps. He ‘listened’ to what my father had to say and gathered more information by asking a couple of pointed questions to my father. He was able to give us a solution almost immediately but wanted the taps to be turned off for the day. He showed enough ‘empathetic behavior’ for us to actually agree to the inconvenience of dry taps for the entire day. He called the plumber himself, instructed him and left. He returned in the evening again to ‘follow up’ whether the problem had been resolved now. He also made ‘additional suggestions’ in order to avoid such an issue again.

The following day, as I sat in a reflective mood, I realized that the mason had demonstrated all of the qualities of an effective executive in the service industry – listen, empathize, follow-up, suggest. I had a practical demonstration of the theory learned in an expensive class from a guy who was educated enough only to sign his name, had never been to college, did not hold a white collar job nor did he attend any high end knowledge transfer workshop. Yet he had the wisdom – wisdom that he would pass to his children without spending a penny.

Additionally, I realized that although I have more degrees beside my name than him, yet I can learn a lot from him about surviving in the cut throat service industry. It is a very humbling realization and I am proud to admit that life teaches its lessons via un-expected sources and it is all the more important to remain simple and humble for continued success.