A Need for Survival

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Authors: Sanjib Dutta & Anil Kumar Kartham,
Senior Faculty Member, Faculty Associate,
ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).

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Issues and Challenges in Customer Service

Serving the customer in this globalized market is always full of challenges and issues. The organization must take proper care of the international and cross-cultural aspects, while promoting, marketing and advertising their products and services to the customers. Cultural conflict can happen both in the delivery of products and also while advertising, labeling and packaging the products. Pepsi's controversial advertisement costed it dearer in the Japanese market during the last football world cup event. Moreover the organizations should understand that customer complaints are a better way of serving them and that they should not be considered as good or bad. Some of the common problems the customer face in today's day-to-day activities are as follows:

With the BPOs coming in the picture, customers get untimely and irregular calls and moreover they are offered all these unwanted services, which they never told they are interested in. These people are hardly concerned about the customer's interests and also whether it is right time to call etc. Credit card companies also do send add on credit cards or different EMI forms etc without the consent of customers.

Recently, RBI has decided to regulate the credit card market and plans to announce stringent policy against the credit card companies if they send unsolicited credit cards and make unsolicited calls once "DO-not-call registration database" is completed.

Telecom companies are also not far behind in irritating the customers. Airtel recently sent one SMS to all its post-paid customers regarding the national roaming facility in which it was stated that the customers who did not want that service might send SMS to 121 asking for deactivation of the national roaming. Some or the other telecom providers do keep on sending unnecessary messages about winning some prizes, take part in quizzes and downloading some ring tones of some favorite stars which the customer never asked for. Not only have these, customers' faces the problem of call transfer without his /her consent. The concern here is very simple. What was the need for the credit card company to send an additional card to the customer and why the telecom company had provided national roaming service, without the consent of the customer.

To avoid problems, the customer would have to go the bank or call back the operator explaining them that he doesn't need those services. The important point her is, this psychic cost really irritates the customer even if the customer is very much loyal towards that particular firm. The telecom and credit card companies must understand such zone of tolerance of the customers.

In the words of Laura, the phrase 'customer is king' is an old axiom that many still subscribe to. When you treat the customer as king you may get into a situation of over-promising, which gets in the way of delivering. She further adds from the experience that today's clients have a new mindset that makes much more sense and keeps clients visiting them repeatedly. Thus it is of utmost importance to treat your customers with respect and deliver what your company promises? Having said that, it is also important to set your customer's expectations and not promise anything that you can not deliver. Setting expectations is just as important as treating your customers right. It is truly about building relationships that last.

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