Ms Ray teaches us all

Sometimes by chance one meets the most amazing people. The other day when I was in Kolkata I took some time out to meet a certain Ms Ray. Ms. Ray and I first spoke on the phone when I was hunting for a book. I could not find my favorite parenting book “10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting” at home. I went hammer and tongs at all the sites searching for the same and finally called a number given at the Oxford store site. Ray picked up the call and has since then given the best possible service over phone and mail. Over a few years I figured that she is easily one of the most prompt and efficient people that I would have interacted with. While I was using her as a customer service person I saw the designation say Content Editor. I kept wondering why this brilliant content editor was taking my calls and mail. In Kolkata when I finally confronted her, she told me that she is a literature student and therefore a content editor by profession, but being in a startup kind of environment; she was handling everything and tried her best to help anyone with a query. Now some time back I had read a book called ‘positively outrageous service’ by Scott Gross. Scott’s point was that some people are naturally great at service and others not so. Some people will feel empathy naturally and some are just not it. So while interviewing it’s just smarter to separate the grain from the chaff. Ray clearly falls into the natural empathy person. I believe that the natural empathy person is the one that is required for all service led organizations. So companies in financial services, all front offices, hospitality, anything. In fact in marketing I firmly believe that the naturals will be the one who will succeed in the long run. They are ones who will feel strongly and naturally for the customers. They are ones who will never screw the customers and will make their needs and wants their own. They are the ones who will believe that service is a must, the consequences may follow. These people in any organization must be preserved and nurtured. They spread the culture by just being there, acting out their true nature. Hmmmmm. If tomorrow’s competition will be on service then the differentiator will be culture. And culture will remain in the hearts and souls of people. So dear company / division, how do you figure out what your soul is? And once you know it, can you really change it? Influence it? Can you nature enough Ms Rays(can you recognize them) in your midst to spread their postivity? Hmmmmmm.

service any one???

I love these PSU’s . the way these government organizations will have customer weeks. So if you are a customer you are only requested to come alive during the week and the rest of the year you may die waiting in the queue’s with cobwebs around your ears. Its been a few hundered years since I last went to these banks and saw the aunties (not) process the work. Man they used to treat you like shit and the customer is like an interruption in their serious conversation about, about,… god knows what. But human nature will not change. The new kids on the block are the spanking new designer clad super hyper active banks. I like to call them the ‘big box’ banking. With the obvious mantra of customer king and more such mantra’s they rae here to take your money mange it and return a profit (not to you, their share holders – idiot). One such bank (promoted by a housing finance company), suddenly decided to send me a letter. You are no longer receiving a salary in this account therefore this is not a zero balance account. Chalo theek hai. Will maintain minimum balance. Next letter 10 months hence. You are not receiving a salary in this account so we are closing this account in 30 days. RESPOND OR DIE! Abe chutia, have you seen my minimum balance? Its 50K. Why would you want to close the account unilaterally, especially when this is a profitable account. So I go to the branch and they say sorry, this account will close becoz some one in product management took this decision and so basically SCREW YOU. I am requested to open a new account with new account numbers and my existing auto debit credits can jump in the well. So I take their case, drop a few names and request to see the branch manager. The poor soul decided to hear my case and make a ‘rare’ exception in my case. Main bach gaya maa! Main bach gaya… Its not about customer week, its about customer orientation!! Another big box bank with the logo ‘i’ gave my wife big time pain on some real piddly issue of transferring money. Same ruse worked. Coolly screwed the agent by taking his name down on a book, asked for his reporting hierarchy, said I work in a bank, dropped a few names in his senior management and walked off. Surely --- his call came apologizing! Hmmm, work gets done only if you do your research well and know some interesting names. Not the big boss name that come in the press but one or two down the line.




Coming to the second photo. Our dear BMC was paving the pavement at VT station with noble intentions (random question: if the pavement is not yet paved, then can it be called a PAVEment? Therefore can I run the car on it?) So somebody dumped the entire sand pot on the place where the bus line works. So pray tell us how would the line flow?






The third is a lovely photo of the HOLY COW wanting to bless our train with its HOLY URINE. OH sooooo holy. We are truly blessed. Location? I don’t remember… probably somewhere in the ‘cow belt’