Hotline To Customer Delight

Notwithstanding the cliché, the winds of globalisation have begun to touch our lives in a way that we perhaps dont realise. For starters, check out the bustling crowds every week-end at the newly opened McDonalds at Vashi in suburban Mumbai. The local Chatterjees, Hemrajanis and Sodhi families that throng the restaurant are merely one evidence that eating habits arent always skewed to local preferences. Whats more, its great to see a team of enthusiastic, young men from the neighbourhood show us what quality service can be all about.

Much the same logic applies to the brilliantly presented Star News, anchored by the ever-popular Prannoy Roy. There was a time when satellite channels simply couldnt break into Indian homes. But ever since NDTV got into the act, most urban families have long forgotten what news on Doordarshan was all about.

 

But dont jump to the wrong conclusions. The Indian consumer hasnt yet been crowned King. At least, not yet.

If youre wondering why, take a look at a recent ad from the local tele-supremo, MTNL. Its the shape of things to come, promises the ad. If you want to be at the cutting edge of local telephony, MTNL brings you its CD-ROM directory. So no more dialing 197 or sifting through over a million entries manually! All you have to do is cough up Rs 100 only and pick up a compact disc of the updated Mumbai telephone directory. Now if youre pleasantly surprised, dont be. After all, customer service is our motto, signed off the ad.

Hmm, remarked the wife, no doubt recalling her familys last round of service encounters with the company. For the last two weeks, my in-laws have been struggling to get the ringer on their telephone back in working condition. But getting through to the exchange to lodge your complaint is a bit like trying to enter a maze blind-folded. Every time you call the assigned number, a recorded voice at the other end politely requests you to dial an alternative number. This process carries on till you realise that youve been had.

A trip to the local exchange is equally fruitless. We will send the linesman to replace your instrument tomorrow, promises the manager. But tomorrow never comes. And in case the linesman repairs the problem, the state of bliss lasts for a little more than a couple of hours. So, for the past two weeks, my father-in-law has now made it a habit of watching TV sitting next to the phone, every now and then picking up the phone to see if theres a caller on the other end. Talk about necessity being the mother of all invention!

With the prospect of competition in basic services loom-ing large, MTNL now no longer plans to compete on vanilla-plain customer service. Customer delight is its new motto.

In simple terms, it means that the powers-that-be at MTNL will be delighted to harass customers in new ways.

I approached one such bloke in distant Belapore in suburban Mumbai to plead my case for a new connection. After all, I had diligently paid my money a good seven months back. After making me wait outside his office for a good 20 minutes while he chatted about things distinctly personal over the phone, the power-that-be condescended to see me. So what? he said. There are people waiting in queue for over a year. That had me floored for less than a minute. But by then I had recovered. What about the press quota? I enquired, hoping that the man would take heed of the special needs of members of the Fourth Estate. His response was very forthright. Pay Rs 12,000 more, and Ill get you the connection in a jiffy. Thats the power of the OYT scheme for you. Getting a miser like me to cough up more money was like asking Sherlock to forgo his pound of flesh. Nothing doing, I said, you have to give me a connection on the old terms.

Thats when he bowled his googly. I have a solution, he said. My eyes brightened up instantly. Why dont you refund your three thousand rupees? A telephone for free! My eyes were ready to pop out. At last my press card was beginning to take effect.

Dont you know there are private operators from abroad setting up shop in your area very soon? Why dont you instead wait for them? Nurtured in an anti-public sector era, I simply couldnt believe my ears.

On my way out, I gave him a short, pithy lecture on the urgent need for competition to unsettle his cosy existence. That clearly got his goat, but before he could rev up his sputtering English, I had pulled out my car from the hell-hole.

In the end, the bloke will have the last laugh. If and when my connection does fructify in March next year, theres a good chance that I may not receive my letter of allotment. Thats because things have reportedly gone haywire at the Vashi post office. Paucity of staff and an on-going agitation by postmen have ensured that there are over one lakh letters lying unsorted.

Management experts will tell you that globalisation is, first and foremost, about a new mindset. It was also, as I learned, a matter of perspectives.