Category Archives: Customer Service

People Power in Retail ….. What, Why and How ?

From the Crucibles of JPS Customer Value Academy

Just Plain & Simple

….. Helping Create Customer Value

Progressive Grocer, March 2011 Issue

Why Right People :

An owner is fully conscious of his roles and responsibilities and why and how he has to do what he does ….. that is why we have a term called ownership. So, I guess, that is the first step in understanding why it is important to have The Right People at each level and what they should do to be like the owner himself, when it comes to key elements of customer service, continuous improvement, team work, integrity and passion !!

Retail in India is clearly poised to grow. The last decade has seen the growth curve take a definite upward swing. With growth, come newer challenges and newer ways of looking at business. New players enter the market, as also, stakeholders from different domains, who, obviously, may not have been, or rather, definitely would not have been exposed to professional retail processes, considering the absence of opportunities to learn from ….. organised retail was not there and hence also, experienced professionals and education programmes to offer know how.

Each stakeholder brings a background and know how and definitely adds valuable contribution to the growth story. Each also has its own perspective and its own strategy on how to ‘create value’. This diversity in skills and knowledge is definitely a good thing as it brings the much needed basic skills and discussions to enable the evolution of a healthy new knowledge/skill base.

With multiplicity of players in retail, there will also be increased competition and that should be, for sure, good for the customer. Hence, Customer Value Offering will necessarily become extremely critical. Survival of the fittest will therefore be linked to whoever is able to master ‘what the customer really wants’ & ‘what adds most value to the customer’.

What is contributed towards a customer’s satisfaction by retail, is essentially through operational efficiency. Most products are sourced and hence, apart from a retailer’s role in sourcing the right type, mix (after having studied customer preferences) and depth of inventory, the biggest value add a retailer can do is through efficient operations i.e. serving according to customer preferences, efficiently. To a large extent, customer preferences at a macro aggregated level, can also be thrown up on an ongoing basis by an operationally efficient system, which ‘tracks’ the same accurately and hence, if the system is sensitive enough, records and adjusts inventory accordingly ….. very much like the dynamic equilibrium in nature, through an efficient feedback loop of an open system !! And if there is a robust enough system, it can provide micro level individual customer preferences at the store ….. allowing the floor executive to mimic the ‘intimate’ understanding of customer preferences, that an individual owner like Kundan Uncle could manage so beautifully !!

What will Right People do :

Strategically, a key differentiator that will emerge therefore, is operational efficiency ….. which includes cost, process efficiency, service cycle times, continuous improvement, width and depth of inventory etc.. This will be an important input towards achieving high levels of customer service/satisfaction/delight.

Technology will be a key element and an accelerator in winning this game to cater to the huge mass of population. And for that matter, there is money to be made at all levels of the income hierarchy and geographic spread. But how does this get unlocked ?

One point which cannot get over-attention in this, is the importance of Right People and Right People Processes. It is people, across all stakeholders and across all domains, functions and levels, who fundamentally drive all the strategies, decisions and operations. Ability to select, develop, retain and grow The Right People will probably emerge as the single most important Success Factor. Any of the players in retail, definitely spends a large percentage of its revenue in people cost. This is probably the biggest expense in the P&L, after cost of goods ….. and just consider how much attention goes behind purchase of inanimate goods compared to selection, development, retention and growth of The Right People !!

Development of skills and talent, specific to retail itself, maybe an investment worth making in the business. This one activity could be the biggest value and profit enhancer, from the top end paying customer to a no frills outlet in rural areas, where also, as they say, there is a lot of fortune lying !!

It is people at all levels who will become critical to success.

Functional skills will and should vary to bring in diversity and different dimensions to the table/organisation. However, a base level of skill sets and behavioural norms is a must and that should be ensured. The key lies in the owner (or Top Management ?) to have confidence that the last person in the last store, will behave, act and serve customers as she would have done if she could be at all locations and with all customers all the time. Hence, is a base level ‘cloning’ good !?

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
— Jack Welch

How to get, retain, develop and grow Right People :

However, having said that, there are ways to ensure that uniform levels of ‘operational efficiency’ are maintained. Processes, SOPs and continuous training are important elements. But all these are also decided and run by people/employees at all/different levels and locations in the organisation. Hence, also, what becomes important is evaluation norms that can be used at recruitment and development stages. The first things which have to be checked (and which non negotiable), are alignment to organisational values, Integrity and team work. Everything else follows …..

What then needs to be kept in mind, has three levels, to keep it simple at this point :

1) Skill Set :

  • Functional Skills
  • Customer Orientation
  • Coaching Ability
  • Ability to take tough calls
  • Adequate IQ level

But 1) above is a base qualification. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition. What are to be looked at, alongwith 1) ?

2) Execution Excellence

3) Passion

The guiding success equation is quite simple :

1) = Base Condition

1)+2) = B grade

1)+3) = C grade

1)+2)+3) = A grade

It is only at that A grade that ownership, accountability, trust, customer orientation and motivation, all come into play naturally.

Leadership Challenge is to build bridges into the future …..

For those who think operational efficiency may not be as important, it may be appropriate to share here that “Fielding historically has been seen as a Service Function in cricket for too long, till Jonty Rhodes changed the game and showed that a Fielder can win matches !!”

J.P.Singh

Justplainandsimple Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

JPSConsulting

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Realise Potential

JPS Customer Value Academy

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Create Customer Value

Blog :http://jpsingh.wordpress.com

Website : www.justplainandsimple.com

Twitter : @jpsingh55

 

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My Experiments with Customer Service ….. Part VI

From the Crucibles of JPS Customer Value Academy

                              Just Plain & Simple                               

                              ….. Helping Create Customer Value

The Indian Optician, November-December 2010 Issue

In the last issue I had written about how Right People and Right People Processes are The Key Success Factors for Indian Health Care. I received a lot of comments on the same; people expressing their agreement with the concept ….. selection, development, retention and growth of The Right People. While it is important for most organisations and industries, I strongly believe that it is The Single Most Important Success Factor for Indian Health Care and allied domains, with the stage of evolution that they are in at the end of the first decade of this millennium.

With the fifth part of ‘ My Experiments with Customer Service ’ in this publication, I had thought that I would conclude the series. However, as I dwelt more on the subject of selection, development, retention and growth of Right People, I experienced and observed issues all around, where the two pillars, that is ‘ Customer Service ’ and ‘Right People’ processes are directly correlated and have a direct impact on the success of organisations ….. assuming that, primarily ‘customer value creation’ is the raison d’etre and will cause the creation of wealth for the owners.

What is important, however, is that the following two types of concerns be adequately addressed and their solutions internalised before any meaningful outcome can be expected  :

– “Once I train my people, they will get picked up by someone else. My entire investment will go waste. Then why should I train them ?” 

– “Yes”, there is total agreement, “it is very important to have the Right People.” But probe a little deeper and one finds that an understanding of the characteristics of ‘Right People’ is missing.

While the latter, in itself is a full fledged subject of research and it may not be possible to touch on it here, what surprises me most is the former ….. When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them, and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you. 

In any case, for whatever time that an untrained person (whether new or old, senior or junior) stays in an organisation, he underperforms and that itself is an opportunity cost which one does not realise. An untrained person will remain a sub-optimal contributor for a much longer period (assuming that he will learn on the job) than it would take to bring him up to speed through developmental inputs.

So, development and growth of employees yields returns in terms of both financial investment and effective time spent on the job; motivation, additional commitment, retention and subsequent efficiencies are icing on the cake !!

The other thing is the kind of impact that lack of well trained people can have on customer experience …..

We, as a family, enrolled as ‘privilege’ members (obviously at a fee) of a well known group of health care clinics. The ambience, equipment and doctors are really very good. Rates are high and the usual greed of excessive ‘tests’ is there as with any healthcare service provider these days. While it was our conscious decision to enroll with the clinic and I am not blaming anyone or complaining about this, one does expect a ‘little’ special treatment, or say, atleast an acknowledgement that they do have members in the ‘privilege’ group. However, far from ‘acknowledging’ one as ‘privilege’ members, most of the staff is not even aware of the existence of such membership, forget benefits associated with it.

On one occasion, when a staff member showed complete ignorance about benefits of the membership, I asked to be allowed to speak to the duty manager. The duty manager’s response was “Sir, he is new” ….. “So”, was my immediate response, “you don’t train/educate your new staff on all the processes ?” It is surprising that new staff was not made aware of the programme directed towards a supposedly loyal/high value group of privilege members. I am sure the formation of this group must have been a part of a core marketing strategy somewhere on the upper floors of their head office in Ivory Towers.

But this was not the only time such a thing happened. I continuously sensed lack of education and developmental inputs at the staff level. So while a lot of investment would have gone in in building the ultra modern clinics, staff interaction makes me keep longing for my neighbourhood doctor’s personal touch and at much lower costs ….. If only the high end clinic could ‘clone’ (not proposing propagation of the same in technical terms) the neighbourhood doctors’ personal behaviour or explain the relevance of the strategy behind introducing privilege membership to its staff, my frame of mind would have been so different today.

And then there was this young employee of an airline which promises to be on time always and also lives up to its promise !! This was a stray incident when, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, the Hyderabad-Delhi flight was delayed by several hours. There were angry outbursts by aggressive Punjabi passengers, but the poor employee, obviously had no training at handling such situations. That one incident would have put some doubt (rightly or wrongly) in so many of the airline’s (well earned) passengers’ minds.

Employee Development, then, for those who say “They will get picked up by someone else. Why should I develop them ?”, is nothing but creating your own ‘clones’ or explaining the relevance of your strategy to your employees, so that when a customer walks in, you can be assured that he/she will get the same treatment as you would have given, had you been able to be present at all locations, all the time, for all customers ….. Just Plain & Simple !!

J.P.Singh

Justplainandsimple Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

JPS Consulting

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Realise Potential

JPS Customer Value Academy

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Create Customer Value

Website : www.justplainandsimple.com

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My Experiments with Customer Service Part V ….. The ‘Just Plain & Simple’ Logic

From the Crucibles of JPS Customer Value Academy

 Just Plain & Simple                                                     

 ….. Helping Create Customer Value

The Indian Optician, July-August, 2010 Issue

A lot of communication designed for customers, is full of high sounding claims and big promises. Special courses on communication reinforce the need for ‘hyping’ up your message to attract customers towards your products and services. There is great merit in identifying a niche, ‘focusing’ communication and polishing the messages that go out. But very often, what happens in the process is that the final message comes out quite distant and different from the actual benefits of one’s offerings. Exaggeration as an art form is very effective, but there is a thin line, which when crossed, can make the same claims unbelievable and misleading.

Part of the contributing factor could be the formal ‘art and science’ of communication. The process is quite evolved for sure. With logical steps and holistic mapping, it is meant to create ‘compelling’ messages for the consumers to ‘want’ your product (needed or not) and to ‘call to action’, leading them into stores as if following The Pied Piper. Dissection of elements, researching of responses, studying consumer behaviour ….. all good techniques, but sometimes leave me wondering at the ‘unrelated and unrealistically’ hyped up messages that actually emerge as an outcome of the exercise. I remember my childhood days and the vendors in our local mela (fair), who used to scream at the top of their voices, attracting customers with ‘Tall Claims’. How was that skill different from the one we see today, bringing out well researched but excessively hyped up claims !?

Perfumes that attract the opposite gender (sure enough there was litigation when a person did not find the fairer sex getting pulled to him, even after years of use of a specific brand), toothpastes strengthening teeth to break rocks, slimming products that show results in inconceivably short time periods, banks that have smiling employees spending all the time in the world chatting with you, four hour complaint resolution promises ….. Cinderella like transformations galore !!

There is a pressure to have cash registers ringing. Sales targets have to be achieved. Investments have to be recovered in any case, but then there is also the expensive promotion that took 20% of revenues, even before the first product was sold. It had to have a high reach, be attractive enough to not only create an interest, but also a strong desire in the customer to want the product so badly, that she takes immediate action. So what if the message is a ‘bit’ unrealistic !?

One is reminded of leading Indian actor Dharmendra, in the 1970’s hit film ‘Sholay’. Standing atop a water tank, intoxicated enough to be in his own world, he screams at villagers gathered all around, threatening to jump and commit suicide if he is not allowed to marry the village belle. Nothing happens though. Good example of excessively hyped communication, without any intention to deliver on the same. He comes down, once the effect of liquor wears away.

We need to realise what happens when the novelty and excitement wears off after the first hyped up trial !? The fall, obviously, is from the height that had been soared in the flight of imagination. Expectations don’t match. The employee behind the bank counter does not have a smiling face as shown in the advertising. Infact he has no time to listen to your questions, let alone sit and chat with you. So what if your complaint has not been resolved for four days as against a promise of four hours !?

The customer, if she has an option, will not come back. However, making simple commitments and meeting them consistently, creates long term customer relationships. The power generated is so strong that it even obviates the need for loyalty cards, as is the case with a low cost airline in India these days.

I was really very impressed when I recently saw a Professor at a well known management institute, taking a lot of effort to drill in his students the concept of ‘Under Promising and Over Delivering’ ….. Now that is teaching some good values, I thought !!

Small acts of help, being there when needed, genuine love, are enough to build relationships even otherwise in life. Business and Leadership, as a philosophy, are an extension of the fundamental principles of Life itself.

This is not to take any credit for myself here, but I have some of the oldest friends and contacts still intact, from school days and from the first job. I may not have succeeded in every job interview or in every new client presentation. But each job lasted very long, each job gave me a lot of lasting contacts and the clients I got, continue to stay with me for long periods of time. I am extremely grateful to so many of them for being referrals for me as well. Infact that is also a reason why I never felt the need to hype up my promises.

On reflection, I realise that I have never made Big, Unrealistic claims in interviews or in client pitches (this perhaps does make my pitches unattractive to some employers and clients), but with the ones who agreed to have me work with them, I try to meet commitments to the best of my abilities. No tall claims, no big promises ….. Just Plain & Simple ….. trying to help them sincerely and also, consciously never restricting my interaction to just predefined and signed up deliverables only, but ready to go that extra mile to provide optimum satisfaction.

When I decided to set out to be on my own, I went through quite a debate in my mind. I did not want to fall into the trap of big sounding claims. I gave myself the below mission statement for how I wanted to lead the rest of my life, that is, for my Second Act :

“To help organisations and individuals in realising their potential by facilitating through Strategic Consulting &/or Enhancement of their Capabilities  in the areas of Strategy, Marketing/Branding, Leadership, Business Processes and Customer Value Creation.”

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself ….. Galileo Galilei

While Just Plain & Simple matched my initials, I realised that it also captured my intentions of not making lofty statements, but quietly ‘helping’, working with others and co-evolving solutions. So whether it is ‘Helping Realise Potential’ or ‘Helping Create Customer Value’, JPS Consulting and JPS Customer Value Academy both have ‘help’ as a key element, reflecting my strong belief in the concept. I would rather try and help sincerely, than make big claims to get a job, contacts or clients.

Treat people as they ought to be and help them become what they are capable of being ….. Goethe

Believing that business should serve the common good is one thing, but combining profit with purpose is no easy trick. Mark Albion, an entrepreneur, ex-Harvard Business School Professor and author of ‘True to Yourself : Leading a Values Based Business’, is confident that it’s possible to build a business with social conscience without sacrificing business acumen and financial reward. To learn how, he interviewed 75 leaders of ‘not-only-for-profit’ small businesses. The heart of his instruction : ‘To reach your dreams, you must help other people reach their dreams’.

So Just Plain & Simple it is for me ….. No Tall Claims, No Big Promises ….. Helping Realise Potential & Helping Create Customer Value.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication ….. Leonardo da Vinci !!

J.P.Singh

Justplainandsimple Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

JPS Consulting

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Realise Potential

JPS Customer Value Academy

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Create Customer Value

www.justplainandsimple.com

jpsingh@justplainandsimple.com

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My Experiments with Customer Service ….. Part IV

From the Crucibles of JPS Customer Value Academy           

                                             Just Plain & Simple                                                                

                                            ….. Helping Create Customer Value

The Indian Optician, May-June, 2010 Issue

Management journals and literature are full of writings on customer service. There are numerous ‘Tips’, ’10 ways to improve’, ‘How to’ types of articles floating all over. One wonders what it is that really lies at the core of ‘ Good Customer Service ’. The ‘made easy’ types of write ups probably do help in some ways, but they handle the topic in a very simplistic and superficial manner, without touching the essence of ‘why’ there are differences in so called ‘customer experiences’ at different places, by different people, at different times ….. What are the motivations and drivers behind such ‘experiences’ ?  The question keeps coming to my mind again and again. I tried thinking of various customer service experiences that I have had in the space time continuum ….. at different times, different locations and through different people. Is the issue really so complex or is it possible to resolve the equation and lead to simplicity lying on the other side of this complexity !?

Many years ago, infact, it was almost about 30 years back, we were on a trip to Himachal Pradesh, the hill state in Northern India. Tired through the long and winding road journey from Shimla to Chail and extremely hungry, we stopped at a local ‘dhaba’ (roadside eatery) just outside Chail. It was mid-day and quite a few people – locals and tourists – had stopped at the dhaba for lunch. A matronly middle aged lady sat behind the tandoor (clay oven), baking fresh ‘rotis’ and overseeing the activities of the dhaba. There were two kids in their early teens, one boy and one girl, most probably her children, serving customers who were seated on wooden benches and ‘charpais’. The pace of activity was quite hectic, with the two kids busy serving food and the lady multitasking by giving instructions from her strategic location, welcoming customers, taking orders, baking rotis and supervising. As we walked in, she welcomed us and asked us to take a seat. The boy came to take our order. We asked what all was available and he rattled off the menu items rapidly. Being students then and with limited budgets, we did our calculations and placed the order. In a short while, we were served hot, freshly cooked, deliciously smelling food in absolutely clean dishes ….. and it looked appetisingly attractive !! However, there was one bowl of ‘kadhi’ ( a North Indian delicacy), also served. We pointed out that we hadn’t ordered the same and they should take it back. The lady, from her perch, said “I have just made it fresh. Why don’t you taste and tell me how it is ? This will not be charged for”.

Thirty years and much customer service literature and related experiences later, I have not been able to forget this incident. The picture is still so clear and vivid in my mind ….. The serene surroundings of Chail, taste of the food, humility and warmth, aroma of freshly cooked ‘tandoori rotis’, cleanliness of the place, radio playing in the background, noise of customers chatting, orders being taken, instructions being passed, the smiling lady with her two children ….. all the elements combined together made for a great experience and above all, the ‘genuineness of the intentions with which the lady asked us to taste her simple, but freshly prepared kadhi’ !!

It was obviously not a ‘sampling’ exercise, with ‘calculations’ of trials generated, conversions expected and future revenues therefrom, that she was doing, hoping to entice us back again and again. She would have known very well that we would probably not go back to Chail again for a long time and even if we did, maybe would not have remembered or gone back to the same place. But the ‘authenticity’ of intentions was amazing.

Zooming forward to the first decade of the 21st century ….. with tension due to the financial crisis brought down on mankind through American Greed.

A few years back, I had to take a home loan. In my effort to understand the process and various offerings better, I called 3-4 banks. All it needed was a call and they would have their agents (sorry, or was it relationship managers !?) swarming all over, calling you incessantly, willing to promise anything and to meet you anytime, anywhere. I even asked one such agent to meet me outside an auditorium at an odd hour after a show and sure enough he was there, with all the brochures and details and promises, ready to get me to sign immediately. “Sir, we will get the loan sanctioned tomorrow”, he said !!

After the initial market study, I zeroed in on one bank. Let’s call it ‘I-Bank’ (Apart from their attractive schemes and promises, they have a great advertising campaign on ‘friendliness and transparency’ ….. “I See, You See, We See” things clearly !?) I signed up for a floating rate of interest. A day after I signed the papers, I wanted to clarify about something and called the ‘relationship’ manager who had been handling my case ….. all I got to hear was the caller tune on his phone and over the next few days, I got used to the tune. He had got his ‘kill’ and was probably on the hunt for the next !!

Over the next couple of years, recession hit and interest rates went up. So did my floating rate. Then one heard about low interest rate options on home loans and I asked about my ‘floating rate’, only to be told that it was for new customers only. Sure enough, I-Bank had its old customers trapped in well, so why bother about them, when they could attract more customers with attractive discounts. Don’t we know from various marketing lessons that ‘getting new customers is more expensive than retaining old ones’ ? And I-Bank was very sure that with old customers shackled in well, it could spend more on new customers by way of throwing extra discounts, not to mention the costs of unleashing their so called relationship managers on them as well. It was as if I-Bank was desperately trying to prove right the above point of ‘acquisitions of new customers’ being more expensive. The intentions with which they went ahead and the approach they adopted, I am sure they ended up alienating a lot of their customers, which, ultimately would prove to be definitely detrimental going forward.

With higher interest rates now (while there were options of moving to lower interest rates with other banks, after paying foreclosure charges etc., I am keeping that out of the scope of the present discussion, purely because it will get into balancing of interest rate savings vs foreclosure charge and I am restricting myself to the customer service domain here), I decided to start part pre-payment and gradually reduce my already high interest and EMI burden. Armed with a cheque book, when I managed to gather enough to make a respectable pre-payment amount, I went to I-Bank. I was pleasantly surprised when the person behind the counter said that they now had a scheme whereby I could get a much lower rate with a small conversion charge. All I had to do, he said, was to take an additional insurance policy from their company in the name of my wife, the co-applicant. But, I told him, I already had an insurance coverage in my name, on the full loan amount. “Sir, this is the bank policy”, he said. In any case, the new interest rate looked quite attractive and I agreed. He said the terms would get approved in a few weeks’ time and I would get then get documents. That was the last I saw and heard from him.

After the ‘few weeks’ passed, I called his phone number to check about the documents and it would be either switched off or I would get to hear the caller tune. I went to the branch office to inquire about the documents. That is when, on asking for details, to my surprise, I was told that the actual interest rate I would get would be higher than what he had told me and that there was no need for the ‘mandatory’ additional insurance policy. This person happened to be from the ‘insurance’ department, manning the counter for a few days and in the process, was ‘motivated’ to sell additional insurance policies. So much for genuineness and authenticity of intentions and that too in a well known, well promoted organisation of the modern financial world.

It took me four months of continuous follow up to get my premium refund, but the ‘promised’ interest was still refused. This was after innumerable calls and Emails (I have more than a hundred and fifty mails in a special folder that I created) and navigating through extremely difficult and unfriendly complaint system on the bank’s website ….. you have to experience it to believe how difficult it can be or was made to be (intentionally ??), inspite of technology used for the purpose.

The ‘kadhi’ offered by the smiling lady in the tandoor in Chail, originated from such genuine and pure ‘intentions’. How does one compare the same with those of the ‘well trained’ relationship managers in highly evolved financial institutions of the 21st century, supported by ‘pleasing’ advertising and high technology ?

JPS Consulting

Just Plain & Simple                               

 ….. Helping Realise Potential  

JPS Customer Value Academy

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Create Customer Value

Website : www.justplainandsimple.com

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My Experiments with Customer Service ….. Part III

From the Crucibles of JPS Customer Value Academy
 
                                Just Plain & Simple                               
                                ….. Helping Create Customer Value

The Indian Optician, March-April, 2010 Issue

Any mention of interaction with government departments conjures up negative emotions and images. And this is not without any basis. Most of our experiences with them have been bordering on the ‘darkest’ end of the spectrum. We all have our own perceptions, but most of these are associated with bureaucracy, red tapism, rude behaviour, inefficiency etc., etc.. 
  

Infact Customer Service and government departments cannot probably be even used in the same sentence ….. an oxymoron ….. ox·y·mo·ron n. (ŏk’sē-môr’ŏn’, -mōr’-) A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence and a mournful optimist.

 

Leading this ‘image creation’ effort are departments with a public interface/dealing, like municipal corporations, post offices etc.. Through years of interaction, our minds have been programmed to think of them in the most negative way. Absolute apathy, disinterest and inefficiency are immediate associations.

 

This was the thought with which I went to the Lodhi Road Post Office in New Delhi a year back. I had to withdraw some amount from the PPF account of my wife ….. “50% of the balance at credit at the end of the 4th financial year immediately preceding the year in which the amount is withdrawn or at the end of the preceding year whichever is lower”.  As you can make out, I went through a lot of preparation, studying all the clauses in the passbook, so that I was well prepared with the challenge of entering a post office. Armed with her identity proof, passbook and an authorisation letter, I reached there, ready to spend a good part of my morning waiting (I even carried a book to read while I waited) and also to come back another day to complete the transaction. I had memories of such interactions with public sector banks in the past, where it had taken multiple visits for resolution of similar issues.

 

On entering, I saw a help desk where I asked how I should go about getting my work done. Expecting a rude reply and a ‘you don’t even know that’ kind of look, I was surprised when the person nicely guided me to the correct counter. There were only two people ahead of me in the queue. In less than three minutes I was presenting all the papers I had carried, to the clerk behind the counter and told him what I wanted. No questions asked, he understood everything and asked me to come back after 10 minutes. I went out and waited. After about 15 minutes I went back to the counter, expecting ‘a reason why it can’t be done today’ and ‘you have to come back on so and so date again’ excuse. To my surprise, the clerk handed over the cheque to me alongwith the duly updated passbook !! I thought of pinching myself and checking ….. was I dreaming ? What could be wrong ?? I looked at the amount, signatories, date ….. but everything was perfect. I thanked the person, he nodded in acknowledgement and I walked out, all in about 20 minutes !!

 

This could be a fluke. Too good to be true …..

 

This is what I thought for a full year, till I got a form from the same post office a few weeks back, wanting to reconfirm my contact details. They were computerising. I filled up the form and went there. A similar sequence followed ….. I inquired at the help desk, was guided to the correct counter, only two people ahead of me, my turn came in less than three minutes, I handed over the form, the clerk acknowledged it and also updated the passbook ….. and then it struck me that since I was there, I could also deposit the minimum mandatory annual amount in the account. “Can I pay the minimum Rs.100/- also now ?”, I asked. “Yes. The amount is Rs.500/- and not Rs.100/-. Please fill up this pay in slip”. I filled it up there and then and handed over the cash and slip. The whole process took about five minutes and that too because I decided to deposit the money as an after thought.

 

I came out and thought how the clerk could have reacted in an unfriendly manner as well. My sudden decision to deposit cash, filling the pay in slip while standing in the queue and ignorance about the minimum amount could all have extracted rude comments from him. Infact I was really attracting such a behaviour and reaction !! Nothing of that sort happened though …..

 

The thought stayed in my mind and I kept reflecting on it. What could be happening there ? How is it that such an oasis exists in the desert of a dry emotionless organisation ? I had to understand this. Last week I decided to go back one morning. This time I went straight to the office of ‘The Post Master’. There was a person at the door who politely asked me what I wanted. I said that I wanted to meet The Post Master. “You can tell me what you want Sir”, the person said. I repeated my request, but he insisted that I tell him and that he would help me. “I have not come with any complaint, but I have had a Great Experience here and I want to understand what you people are doing”, I requested. He smiled and took me inside. The Post Master, a smiling lady, sat behind the table.

 

“What is happening here ?”, I asked after I narrated my experiences to her. The lady gave an understanding smile and replied “We have regular training for our staff. They go through a full one week programme and then we repeat it quarterly by rotation for all staff members. We discuss how they should never get angry with customers. You will never find our staff getting angry. We tell them that no matter what the customer says, they have to stay calm. We train them on handling customer queries. There are role plays and discussions”.

 

I kept listening, amazed at the initiative being taken at this post office, that too, when obviously, the compensation levels are so low. “But how come the cheques were made within minutes and that all interactions were so fast and quick ? Even I-Bank and H-Bank, who advertise (if only they could spend that money in genuine improvement) and talk a lot about customer service levels and preferred customer treatment, come nowhere close”, I asked. She went on to explain that they had delegated authority right up to the front end counter level. They also rotated people across multiple counters so that each person had exposure to multitasking, increasing efficiency and empathy. Staff was short and retiring staff was not replaced, but multitasking and continuous training ensured a high level of efficiency and customer service. They have a very cordial working atmosphere and all members were like one big family. It could be seen in the calm that prevailed in the atmosphere as well as physical cleanliness of the place !!

 

WOW !! I was amazed. We hear about all this, we talk about such things. Here was a place, an oasis in the midst of an uncooperative, unfriendly and inefficient ecosystem, in hostile desert like conditions, which was making such a big difference. Who says you cannot change things in an unsupportive environment amidst challenges. It all starts with a desire, genuine effort, a spirit of partnership and an ability to transcend oneself !! I was reminded of Gandhi ….. “Be the change that you want to see in the world” !!

 
 
 
 

 

 

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