There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.
Adlai E. Stevenson
If you are a typical Indian, chances are that you have been hit by VAS charges for services you did not ask for, have called 'free entry' contest numbers @ Rs 10/minute, been levied bank charges for patently unfair situations, seen your general insurance(auto/mediclaim) claims contested to the last penny etc. And if you also an investor, then don't even get me started. The charlatans and cheats far outnumber the honest people(if there were any in the first place). While NSE did limit the extent to which the brokers could fleece the public, they found other mechanisms via power of attorney, unauthorized trades, PMS services etc.
Athithi Devo Bhava applies while serving expats from Indian BPOs. But when it comes to domestic service, then customer is the king-in the same way that a joker is the 'king' of the carnival-where everyone pokes fun at him explicitly or otherwise.
Thankfully, regulators(IRDA/SEBI/RBI/CCI/TRAI) are all waking up to this reality and are tightening their regulations to provide for SLA times, escalation procedures, penalties, opt out(do not call registry in telemarketing, explicit consent for levying VAS charges, banking fee prenotification etc).
But there is a lot more to be done in this space. And that is why I have no sympathies for Indian service providers when they bemoan the declining customer loyalty. They have dug their own graves.
No comments:
Post a Comment