Death of customer service in India

Death of customer service in India:

Behaviour by brain - 'In recent times, the focus on customer care as a core business strategy seems to have lost its importance'

Chandra has several recent, but unresolved customer-services (CRs) issues with 

1. #Uber - two drivers cancelled a prior-appointment for an important meeting. Multiple reminders, incl tweets, have not been responded to. No closure even after 10 days! 
2. #3M car care - they just decided to save water, get environment-friendly with retrospective effect, thus unilaterally nullifying annual maintenance contract (AMC)
3. #Airtel 4G wifi - connectivity is an issue for over 2 years now - not dependable, when most needed
4. #HDFC Bank - multiple issues, for they don't see multiple products as one relationship. So much so, he decided to downgrade from 'Imperia' to 'cattle-class'!
5. #HDFCLife - poor returns, over and above wrong #CrossSell by the bank RM himself :(
6. #JetAirways - a packet of sweet disappeared from his checked in baggage. 
7. #CrownePlaza, Chennai - he lost his power-bank
8. #DTDC - the Diwali gift he had sent to his mother is still missing. DTDC is not responding

Chandra conducts training/visiting faculty engagements for young leaders and BSchools students (aspiring leaders!). He seems to be attracting a lot of case-studies :((

20 yrs or 30 yrs back, when many of us were in the corporate world, at lower/middle level leadership roles, the customer was still important. Customer complaint was not measured scientifically like it is today. But then it was not mere a process management, but managing relationships. What caused this?

- Is it our obsession with top-line and bottom-line, come what may?

- Is it our myopic view of quarterly, monthly or even weekly targets vs achievement?

- Is it the expanding market where it is a deliberate strategy to acquire customers, vs retention?

Would these sustain in the long run? 

Make in India or any variant thereof, including the focus on Services, will have no impact unless we bring back the customer centricity, at its holistic level. 

It is about #leadership. Moving from selfish to at least partly selfless? #I2We2He

Our Leadership has to move to #ServantLeadership #CustomerDelight as primary focus

Glad Biju Dominic wrote about this and Mint carried the article on November 23, 2017 (when I was away on a spiritual retreat, in bliss, and no expectation of customer service - I was 'serving' some 'customers', or guests at the Ashram) 

Ramu is Missing, since Diwali - Cruel Sapiens

PC @Pixabay

Ramu and Brownie were two dogs in our locality. They were neither street dogs, nor fully at home. They moved around freely, seemed to be well-fed. They enjoyed the freedom.

Often, when I took our dog (not so lucky with such unlimited freedom) out in the evenings, both Ramu & Brownie would come over and hang around. Then I started giving them biscuits. Occasionally I surprised them with the branded-treats! Ramu would enjoy the biscuits more than Brownie, who had an air of detachment for biscuits & treats!!

Ramu & Brownie had a very loving presence when we were out. 

Since Diwali, Ramu is missing. I have been looking around for several days. No sign of Ramu. Brownie has been around, but occasionally. At times Brownie would be found barking his heart out in the dead of the night. He was restless. 

Yesterday met a familiar face from the neighborhood and I asked him about Ramu. 

He said, 'Ramu looked very agitated during Diwali. This Diwali-season people burst more crackers in our locality. Ramu would run helter-skelter. He seemed to be under severe stress. A couple of days after Diwali, when most crackers were burst, Ramu looked very agitated. And just disappeared...
Ramu is very old. He has never gone away like this. We have no idea where he is and how he is...'

Ramu is missing, or is in danger... :(

There was a tinge of sorrow in the young man's eyes. A sense of helplessness just like these animals feel when we burst crackers indiscriminately... 

Why are we 'Sapiens' are cruel?  (Currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Harari)

This year we have seen unusual levels of bursting crackers in Bangalore. We continue to burst crackers even till today! It is getting worse by the day... 

For many of us, life may be a celebration! Hence some of us burst crackers. That may not be the case for many others. 
- Children and senior citizens, who can not handle the pollution, esp those who are sensitive to breathing-related problems
- Animals, birds and environment.

Whatever the excuse, should we stop bursting crackers and reserve some pollution for the next year?

Spare a thought for Ramu and all the birds & animals. They need all our loving care... 

For, 
'every being, knowingly or unknowingly, is on a spiritual pilgrimage'. 

And that includes Ramu...

Honey Bee Terminator Sapiens

'If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change 
- #Buddha 

(Courtesy #NarayanRamachandran @livemint) 



We grow colorful flower-plants, all around...

It is like enticing the honey bees and then killling them in large numbers. 

Can we get more cruel? Why do we get pleasure in killing these bees, who are so very critical to the environment?! 

When you start a day with low energy, expect more unpleasant surprises during the day. 

Chandra does not look at the morning news - on tv or on the smart-phone. To keep away the negativity. 
But when the balcony is full of dead honey bees, it can be very depressing. Moreso when a not-so-friendly neighbor, in an apartment 'above', choose to be a terminator. 

The sight of hundreds of honey-bees lie dead on the floor, in the garden of the apartment complex... was most painful...  

All Chandra could do to overcome the sorrow was to try to ignore! 

DYK our great grandchildren may face acute food shortage because we are being so destructive... honey bees to the environment? And that may be the legacy of our generation! 

Why we need bees - TED Talks

https://www.ted.com/playlists/341/why_we_need_bees