On a hot Monday morning I reached the branch of a reputed private sector bank at Connaught Place, New Delhi at about 10 minutes to 10. The bank branch opens at 930 for the employees to enter; but the bank counter for public opens at 10 am. As I was on the way to a formal meeting I was attired in my suit. By the time I had reached the bank branch from the parking lot I was sweating. The security at the gate in a quite rude manner told me that the service starts only at 10 and I should wait out in the sun till then. I requested that I may be allowed to enter the branch and wait at the customer waiting area till the service starts. But he was un- relenting. He in his most authoritative tone and manner told me that it is the rule! I could see the pleasure in his face at this opportunity to show his power and authority at that moment. After few minutes, one of the officers of the bank came out. I explained to him my plight and he was kind enough to let me in. (See the paradox; even I feel that I received a favor!)
Is this an isolated instance? No. This is a kind of standard experience we get to face when we deal with most of the service desks of most of the service providers in India. The man (women) behind the desk often believes that he is doing a favour to the client who has approached him. In some of the industries like hospitality we see conscious effort to treat the customer with respect. The management has appreciated how this service orientation is critical to their business success and continuously tries to build in incentives to this dimension of service. However the level of treatment deteriorates with the extent of monopoly/ market power of the service providers. When the service provider becomes a government entity; especially with some enforcement responsibility, it reaches its nadir. Although we euphemistically call a government employee ‘public servant’ in his heart he is the king dispensing favours. If you demand for what is due to you, then you are considered arrogant and if you raise a complaint to the senior he takes this as a personal affront. Then he will go out of the way to see that you are harassed and you suffer. You can hear his boasting. “You don’t know whom you are dealing with. I will teach you a lesson. I will see to it that you keep climbing the stairs to this office for quite some time". Often the seniors do nothing.
Compare this to the service expectation explained to me by one of my friends from New Zealand. He is a doctor and works in a public health center where lots of people from not-so-affluent strata of society visit for medical consultation. He was explaining to me the extent of service quality expected from him and I found it absolutely amazing. Imagine that a patient comes to his clinic and he a suffering from an ailment which requires certain procedure to be performed on him and a time and is fixed for this procedure. If the patient does not come and get the procedure done then it is the responsibility of the doctor to find out why and follow up with the patient. The doctor is even expected to take the help of local social worker to address his concerns.
Why is service orientation so poor? There are many reasons for this.
(i) It appears that we have a feudal mindset. We love to exert and exhibit our power over others than be of help. Even when we do our duty in providing a service we like to feel that we are doing a favour.
(ii) The job description seldom includes service quality and how the clients are treated as key parameters. Even when service quality is attempted to be built-in it seldom addresses the way the customer is treated.
(iii) Most of the service providers do not have an exception handling mechanism. Grievance handling is often an attempt to justify the failure and not an attempt solve a problem.
(iv) There are no measures instituted to see how the clients are treated. In many cases it is difficult to actually measure this in an easy fashion and we need innovative ideas to do this
(v) There is no incentive/ dis-incentive (either financial or in terms of career progression) built-in for the quality of service that is provided either to the servicing officer or to his boss.
(vi) We live in an environment of shortage. There are no sufficient hospitals or schools or colleges or transport service to meet the demand. Such an environment naturally encourages rent seeking behavior and we attempt to replicate this behavior in all walks of life.
May be it is time that we encourage every service organization to undertake independent customer satisfaction audits periodically and publish the same. It could be made mandatory requirement in the annual report for private companies. In case of government entities this could be made a key component of the performance appraisal which will affect the career progression of the officers responsible. This may be the invisible hand that drives changes the way the customer is serviced.
"We cannot always oblige but we can always speak obligingly." – Voltaire
Related Readings
Bureaucracy – Nature or Nurture ?
Is this an isolated instance? No. This is a kind of standard experience we get to face when we deal with most of the service desks of most of the service providers in India. The man (women) behind the desk often believes that he is doing a favour to the client who has approached him. In some of the industries like hospitality we see conscious effort to treat the customer with respect. The management has appreciated how this service orientation is critical to their business success and continuously tries to build in incentives to this dimension of service. However the level of treatment deteriorates with the extent of monopoly/ market power of the service providers. When the service provider becomes a government entity; especially with some enforcement responsibility, it reaches its nadir. Although we euphemistically call a government employee ‘public servant’ in his heart he is the king dispensing favours. If you demand for what is due to you, then you are considered arrogant and if you raise a complaint to the senior he takes this as a personal affront. Then he will go out of the way to see that you are harassed and you suffer. You can hear his boasting. “You don’t know whom you are dealing with. I will teach you a lesson. I will see to it that you keep climbing the stairs to this office for quite some time". Often the seniors do nothing.
Compare this to the service expectation explained to me by one of my friends from New Zealand. He is a doctor and works in a public health center where lots of people from not-so-affluent strata of society visit for medical consultation. He was explaining to me the extent of service quality expected from him and I found it absolutely amazing. Imagine that a patient comes to his clinic and he a suffering from an ailment which requires certain procedure to be performed on him and a time and is fixed for this procedure. If the patient does not come and get the procedure done then it is the responsibility of the doctor to find out why and follow up with the patient. The doctor is even expected to take the help of local social worker to address his concerns.
Why is service orientation so poor? There are many reasons for this.
(i) It appears that we have a feudal mindset. We love to exert and exhibit our power over others than be of help. Even when we do our duty in providing a service we like to feel that we are doing a favour.
(ii) The job description seldom includes service quality and how the clients are treated as key parameters. Even when service quality is attempted to be built-in it seldom addresses the way the customer is treated.
(iii) Most of the service providers do not have an exception handling mechanism. Grievance handling is often an attempt to justify the failure and not an attempt solve a problem.
(iv) There are no measures instituted to see how the clients are treated. In many cases it is difficult to actually measure this in an easy fashion and we need innovative ideas to do this
(v) There is no incentive/ dis-incentive (either financial or in terms of career progression) built-in for the quality of service that is provided either to the servicing officer or to his boss.
(vi) We live in an environment of shortage. There are no sufficient hospitals or schools or colleges or transport service to meet the demand. Such an environment naturally encourages rent seeking behavior and we attempt to replicate this behavior in all walks of life.
May be it is time that we encourage every service organization to undertake independent customer satisfaction audits periodically and publish the same. It could be made mandatory requirement in the annual report for private companies. In case of government entities this could be made a key component of the performance appraisal which will affect the career progression of the officers responsible. This may be the invisible hand that drives changes the way the customer is serviced.
"We cannot always oblige but we can always speak obligingly." – Voltaire
Related Readings
Bureaucracy – Nature or Nurture ?
We are so used to rationing - that even service providers ration out service!
ReplyDeleteThe origin of most of the problems you have observed comes from a basic flaw in the way we run our country: we have decided to continue with processes and hierarchies which were created by an occupying government.
ReplyDeleteOur country was first occupied by Mughals and then by British. A huge part of post-independence Indian government processes are direct replicas of either Mughal processes or British ones. Those processes are only suitable when one race or community rules over another -- they are not suitable for self-governance. It is this fundamental flaw which has eradicated the local accountability from all our processes, and local accountability (i.e. you should be accountable to your parents, friends, schoolteacher, etc, for your behaviour) which is at the root of sustained good service.
An American policeman feels accountable to his local community, because the local mayor or corporator can hire and fire a local sheriff. An Indian policeman owes no allegiance to the local community where he is posted because his chain of command is completely independent of the local civic authorities and goes straight up to the state government police HQ somewhere five hundred kilometres away. He has been taught and trained to be indifferent to the local community which he is supposed to serve.
This has come from the government, and is now part of our culture. It has been replicated by private enterprises too -- culture is hard to change.
Hi Koshy- Good stuff, and thought provoking one too. I am not too sure about your basic premise-should the security guy be really faulted for not letting you in before time? In this case, he could have been diplomatic and pointed you to a coffee shop nearby :) to cool off.
ReplyDeleteAnyway the question of service ( or the lack of it) is a well documented and chronicled one, and the lack of service reaches a peak when there is no or little competition- may I hastily add that this is the approach of a short-sighted management.
Quality service in corporate sector is a combination of top down and good policies. If the CEO doesnt care for customers or is not passionate about customer service, that will show right down to the security guy.
Competition and the explosion of social media will make companies work harder on customer service.
As for service mentality in government, I dont see too much merit on blaming heritage and feudalism and such. The basic question that begs an answer is "Am I man enough to be responsible for my actions?" If I am (man enough), irrespective of carrot or stick, good boss or bad boss, I will do the service or go beyond in helping a customer who I serve. If not I will blame every thing and everyone, including the weather or my morning breakfast or my spouse or my kid for providing lousy service!
Cheers!
Kenneth