DailyPost 2239
SERVICELESS SERVICE
If you have been provided with satisfactory service for most of service requirements on a regular basis you might be one of the few lucky ones in this country. From an individual service provider to the best of the multinationals operating in India, it might be a nightmare service can be a nightmare. Standard service might still be okay in completely changed business and communication environment, but anything that is even slightly demanding else it is asking for a bit too much. Just contrast it with the way payments happen – near total seamless, from any platform to the other. The payment service is perfect. Alas, the service also happened in a similar manner.
Leave the service apart, the communication also does not happen as necessitated by that need. Most of this communication does not happen at all. It has to be called out otherwise the situation is never going to improve in this country. One thing is for sure, you cannot be finnicky about the number of times of you have to remind the person do the something, which is rightfully your demand. If you are, then it will never done and you would left in the lurch with nowhere to go. The beauty of this service less service industry, is that they will disappear in the cracks or crevices, never to get caught or held accountable for.
That has been the reason why it is not only endemic in our system, it has been stalling lots of things like a pandemic. It is a virus unseen but hitting the vitals of our system. Whatever might be your product, utility or infrastructure, if the service is not at par, how do you use it to your satisfaction with confidence. At the real physical level, companies like Urban Company have been trying to feel the void, how much can be covered is a different story. The stress is being factored in every activity of this country, adding to the cost and the service scenario remains nearly the same. Some changes might happen for sometime, in a flash in the pan mechanism. See the levels to which the great cab service provider Uber and Ola have landed in this country. Every model breaks here and barely anything sustains.
Utilities don’t even feel they are a part of the service industry. They are at par with the customer and even beyond. You can be even taught to behave. Demanding your right on payment with the Indian service industry is like asking for a share in their property. Bankers don’t even feel that they are a part of it, but for the time of selling their products /services. Same is the case with big IT behemoths; Indian or multinational. My tryst with Dell has not ended anywhere, with their audit, interrogating me yet again. Transparency cannot happen by multiple systems running in a parallel, but by having the capability to deploy expertise whenever and wherever required for this purpose. Union Bank cannot pass on instructions on a savings account being transferred to a different branch of the same bank and it the same city. The customer has to follow at the both ends. HDFC can transfer a fixed deposit on maturity to a POA account. You might not even have anybody at the other end to listen. How far can core banking software help these mindless professionals? How long can the user / customer pay and suffer?
SERVICE IS THE MAGIC SAUCE OF AN OPERATIONL ECONOMY.
Sanjay Sahay