Passion..

Now I know why I persevere !:)

Customer Contact Week

Oriental Bank of Commerce has advertised 19-24 Dec 2011 as " Customer Contact Week" - feedback/suggestions welcome !:)

This must be the outcome of some profound strategy. Listen to the customer for a week and spend the rest of the year working on the suggestions ?

The scent of an airline..

British Airways plans to introduce a signature scent in the aircrafts . Interesting initiative by an airline.

Later perhaps..the perfume in an aircraft shaped bottle !:)

Shhhh....

Festivals in particular and Mumbai in general is a ripe market for ear plugs . Instead of giving pointless gifts like sweets - lets give thoughtful gifts like ear plugs to survive the din.

p.s - when 2 festivals coincide give extra strong ear plugs.

God save the God(s)

Lord Ganesha definitely represents prosperity when devotees gift kilos of gold each year. What happens to the gold post the festival one wonders ?

What prevents the devotees from using that money to feed / educate children , provide medical aid to the needy or plant trees ?

The poor God(s) must surely despair at being reduced to the status of a hedonistic , greedy mortal of poor taste.

God save the God(s).

End the deficit..

“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for re-election.”

—Warren Buffett giving us a quick lesson on incentive in an interview on CNBC.

A nearly fool-proof way to get any economy back on track !:)

Happy to sue (customers)

Vodafone sent a notice to a customer who posted on his Facebook wall about his problems with the service provider. This has to be a new low in customer service. Incredibly foolhardy and arrogant of Vodafone to think that they could get away with this stunt in today's connected world.

The customer alleges that the CMO asked him to change to another service if he was not satisfied. What a role model for the rest of the company ! Instead of addressing the service issues if a senior executive speaks high handedly to a customer it sends strong signals to the rest of the organization that this is an acceptable attitude.Vodafone might as well disband all service training programs (if they do conduct any).

Vodafone's gripe is that Dhaval posted numbers of their executives on his page. This is a huge offense in Corporate Land. Companies devise elaborate procedures to keep customers as far away as possible from their senior management. As a test case the next time you call any company - airline , credit card , retailer , phone company - if your problem is not being resolved by the person handling your call just ask them for the name, telephone number , email id of the service head or CEO . Suddenly they will get very co-operative or they'll develop amnesia or say that they only know their immediate supervisor. Often organizations become a world unto themselves with senior management feeling like monarchs of their fiefdoms. They don't want to be bothered with lowly matters like customers especially when it's a Rs 1000-1500/ month type of revenue (the CMO would have paid way more attention to a B2B client ).

Vodafone's facebook page is filled with complaints from customers across the country. Some of it in language that would be deemed profane. Maybe Vodafone should clarify that what they're trying to say is it's ok for people to vent their fury on Vodafone's page rather than their own ?

This episode opens up opportunities for ad agencies of the phone companies . Vodafone's agency can figure a new tag line since "happy to help" is not valid. Other phone companies can add "we don't send notices to our customers" in their list of virtues.