Love and Hate in Airtel Land Redux--Or Why Do We Settle for Lowest Common Denominator
Raju Narisetti -
Thursday, September 04, 2008 1:20 PM
A reader's comments (below) on my love-hate affair with Airtel (see Love and Hate in Airtel Land blog post here) made me wonder why is it that as paying customers we want to settle for lesser of the evils, a much more pronounced trend in India even among big spending, powerful consumers when it comes to shoddy quality. Is it because there isn't really a choice in the end or have we come so far from the days when we all knew the horrors of getting a government landline all to well that we are happy with the least shoddy service provider? Here is what the reader wrote:
"I used to think Airtel's mobile, landline and broad band services were pretty bad till I recently had to deal with Vodafone's call center on behalf of my husband who was out of town and found his national roaming would not activate. Vodafone, which as Hutch was fine as far as dealing with customers went, sets news standards in poor service and even poorer customer handling. If I get down to it,I will try and send you a small piece on my experience with them. You may revise your opinion of Airtel." Anjuli Bhargava
This comment and the many that the blog received made me wonder. Rather than settling, what if we use the very fact that customer service is an emotional and evocative issue in India and turn that into leverage and constructively point to where the problems might lie as Mint columnist S. Mitra Kalita did recently in a smart column, also about Airtel's service?
Her Wider Angle column (see full column and the many comments it evoked online here) titled Please Airtel, Hear My Call makes a compelling case for how smart business strategies (in this case outsourcing customer service) may not necessarily result in higher customer satisfaction. I do think customer service has to be core competency for a service provider and how that competency gets communicated to your third-party employees is the real challenge. What struck me beyond the comments online on her column, was how the idea evoked so many reader experiences. Here are three:
Apropos to the Article titled 'Please, Airtel, Hear my call' by S Mitra Kalita (August 28, 2008) I completely agree with her views about the service standards of the customer care executives of various service providers. Not alone Airtel, it is the state of every service provider be it a Bank, an Insurance Company, a DTH Service Provider, a Telecom Operator et al. She has rightly pointed out that the majority of the chaos is due to lack of empowered workforce at the execution level, which lacks both in tools as well as quality training about the processes and query resolution. The fact that the outsourced agencies and the employees do not have the sense of ownership is also very valid. Outsourcing is definitely healthy for the profitability of the company, but it is high time that the service providers realize that in the quest of saving money the situation is worsening day-by-day and might end up in a bigger problem. Service providers need to spend quality time as well as money with these outsourced agencies to gear up the service levels. Yogesh K Gupta
There couldn’t have been a more apt timing for me to have read your article (mint 29.08.08). Having suffered a 'relapse' of poor customer service from Airtel, I couldn’t help relating to your article with a feeling of universal brotherhood. I am forwarding you my recent correspondence (written with one hand tearing away at my hair) with Airtel. I seriously feel they need to take lessons from MTNL in customer service. Compared to the pits that the Airtel complaint redressal has reached, dealing with the state run MTNL is an immensely pleasurable experience, with their time tested linesmen attending to complaints within 24 hrs. I do hope your message will create the right ripples in the hierarchy at Airtel. Ashok Pachisia
Your article on Airtel was spot on. In fact that’s exactly the problem which none of the service providers seem to be aware of. Their only motive seems to be only keeping the shareholders happy. The customers and the service are the least priority for them. See how they have successfully dodged the number portability. Let me narrate my recent experience with Vodaphone--unfortunately don’t know how to keep it short...Ravi Katti ((Ravi went on to give his saga with Vodafone)
In my other life as a volunteer board member of Oxfam India, I am familiar with what is called as the Wada na Todo Abhiyan, which aims to hold the Indian government accountable to its promise to end poverty and social exclusion (see details here). That campaign remains a work-in-progress but, given all the woes about every mobile service provider and how little the regulator can or is willing to do, maybe what India's mobile industry needs is a consumer movement on similar lines...