What ails us as a nation today is the fact that our customer has become dehumanized. A number, a statistic, a category or whatever…
The bigger the business operations the smaller the personalized, customer contact and care.
Customer care for the customer has become a dirty word, ever since the customer started feeling that a product or service needed a special department to talk to.
Tell me, when did any company become bigger than its customer that it needed to tell or justify the fact that it needed an impersonalized service that could be a good thing for its customer?
The volume game is the only one that works today, especially if you aspire to be big, or are fortunate enough to be already big.
But handling a large volume of customers must not make us impervious to the fact that each of them are individual human beings. Franchise business for any product, be it for MacDonald, ICICI or Benetton have to also have a package for customer handling, along with its operations. The feel good feeling that they must convey to their customer will always remain a challenge for any organization, be it big or small, but the larger the organization the more difficult it gets.
Service to a customer is more than solving problems. Or hearing out complaints.
We dehumanize a customer if we mispronounce his / her name. We insult them by going on like a recording machine, informing them about their own telephone or their credit card number , as if they are suffering from advanced Alzhimezers. Will the customer not feel like an idiot if asked security checks which needed him / her to give their mother’s 10 years old residential address , or even their own, which they gave ( faked ? ) on a rented house that they shifted out of 5 years back.
So what is the big deal you may ask, when volumes count?
How much can you worry about the feelings of a single customer? I don’t know, but no business can take a chance about brushing a customer under the carpet however negligible that may be as a statistic.
Today we have begun feel pompous about the fact that we can create demand even artificially, for products that may be not based on real needs - through advertising. Advertising is about the power of reach, but business survival is beyond that – it is about the power of touch. We have to be so careful about that.
Customer feelings are all that matters the most.
What is customer value or customer care in India? Dehumanizing the Employee results when customer value or customer care is compromised.
Unless we can give value to our customer, we cannot feel valued as employees. Any company who neglects this aspect dehumanizes their employees. How to survive in great jobs, in great companies, in a great bubble excluding sensations of customer satisfactions, is a feat for some and an easy switch-off for most.
The resulting ambiguity in employees makes them mediocre. And – Thodi si mediocrity is more than thodi si compromise from the perspective of business survival.
Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author
The bigger the business operations the smaller the personalized, customer contact and care.
Customer care for the customer has become a dirty word, ever since the customer started feeling that a product or service needed a special department to talk to.
Tell me, when did any company become bigger than its customer that it needed to tell or justify the fact that it needed an impersonalized service that could be a good thing for its customer?
The volume game is the only one that works today, especially if you aspire to be big, or are fortunate enough to be already big.
But handling a large volume of customers must not make us impervious to the fact that each of them are individual human beings. Franchise business for any product, be it for MacDonald, ICICI or Benetton have to also have a package for customer handling, along with its operations. The feel good feeling that they must convey to their customer will always remain a challenge for any organization, be it big or small, but the larger the organization the more difficult it gets.
Service to a customer is more than solving problems. Or hearing out complaints.
We dehumanize a customer if we mispronounce his / her name. We insult them by going on like a recording machine, informing them about their own telephone or their credit card number , as if they are suffering from advanced Alzhimezers. Will the customer not feel like an idiot if asked security checks which needed him / her to give their mother’s 10 years old residential address , or even their own, which they gave ( faked ? ) on a rented house that they shifted out of 5 years back.
So what is the big deal you may ask, when volumes count?
How much can you worry about the feelings of a single customer? I don’t know, but no business can take a chance about brushing a customer under the carpet however negligible that may be as a statistic.
Today we have begun feel pompous about the fact that we can create demand even artificially, for products that may be not based on real needs - through advertising. Advertising is about the power of reach, but business survival is beyond that – it is about the power of touch. We have to be so careful about that.
Customer feelings are all that matters the most.
What is customer value or customer care in India? Dehumanizing the Employee results when customer value or customer care is compromised.
Unless we can give value to our customer, we cannot feel valued as employees. Any company who neglects this aspect dehumanizes their employees. How to survive in great jobs, in great companies, in a great bubble excluding sensations of customer satisfactions, is a feat for some and an easy switch-off for most.
The resulting ambiguity in employees makes them mediocre. And – Thodi si mediocrity is more than thodi si compromise from the perspective of business survival.
Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author
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