After Sales Service

On the other day as soon as I picked up a call,was greeted with some rude remarks from the other side which sometime happens for people who are in support in our unit.The point of concern was that after raisng a call for 15 days there was no action taken to resove the issue which was faced at the site.After pacifying the caller I got down to work .The issue which reported looked like a bug .Analysis was done & it was found that my initial guess was correct.A devoloper was assigned the job,the code was fixed,testing was done & when the patch was released the issue was almost 1 month old due to the only reason that a lot of processes were in the picture.

Recently took a relinace connection for the sole purpose of one CUG(Closed User Group) facility where in you can talk to some particular numbers of your choice for 24 hrs free of cost.Don't ask me the purpose of such a phone with this kind of facility(Every one knows it ;)).The salesman was really proud that he has got a customer who is well satisfied with the product he has offerred.After finishing all the formalities I was happy to lay my hand on the CDMA phone with the connection.

But to my dismay, the problem started after I came home.The promise was made to me that the CUG facility will be activated in 3 days.After 3 days the number was increased to 7,and after this the number was increasing as if there was no end to it.

It beacame a daily chore for me to go the reliance web world near my place & get the status update.But even after 1 month also there was no progress.I was forced to call the customer care executive & had to put the manager of the web world in conference with him to let them know that it is really a pain for me to run for the activation which should have been done earlier.It took some harsh words from my side to get the facility activated after 1 long month.


On the way home could not help but think if there is any similarity between these two incidents.
One related to a consumer facing the wrath of the after sales service,the other an enetrprise facing the same problem.One invloved the mentality of the people,the other involved the layer of processed those have been built in & around supporting a customer.

A lot of times we know the value we add to the customer experience when we give them a good after sales service.This sometimes is the bread & butter of an enterprise,the cash cow which we can milk if we maintain it in such a way that customers' goodwill is always there.Why do we get embroiled in so many processes and difficulties when we are supporting a customer??Why don't we have the mentality which makes us think "customer is the king"??Is it that we read & forget or is it that once we sale a product we take the customer for granted??Real business is like a war & good customers are the best weapons to fight with.Once you make them bad you are out of the business.

On the way from the reliance web world I was thinking if I have learned a valuable lesson in my career.