CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

COMPLAINT MANAGEMENT GRIEVANCE REDRESSAL and CUSTOMER CARE

Random Experiences

By

VIKRAM KARVE

An Effective Grievance Redressal Mechanism or Efficient Complaint Handling and Customer Service Management System comprises five aspects:

1. It must be easy for you to lodge the complaint. This can be either on phone or SMS or by email or on the website. (In today’s world of the internet, online grievance management mechanism is a must and the days of writing letters, submitting written applications and using snail-mail are a thing of the past)

2. Your grievance must be acknowledged in a prompt manner. This is best done by a prompt call or SMS or an email giving you a reference token number to enable you to monitor the progress of redressal of your grievance / complaint.

3. You must be kept informed and updated regarding the status of your complaint and it must be easy for you to monitor the progress of the grievance redressal process.

4. Your grievance must be resolved to your entire satisfaction in a time bound manner. A sincere and transparent attempt must be made by the customer care department to achieve “customer delight” by a mutually agreeable reconciliation of the complaint and insidious attempts to browbeat, bully, harass or confuse the customer must be avoided.

5. Your feedback and suggestions must be sought. As a part of continual improvement a good customer care department always asks for post grievance redressal feedback and suggestions, acts on the comments of the customer and keeps the customer informed. Rather than just ring up the customer, it is better to obtain feedback by email or in a prescribed format. This enables the customer to give comprehensive feedback and ensures that the feedback is properly recorded for future action.

Let me share some of my experiences of Grievance Management Systems I have encountered.

1. MARS INTERNATIONAL INDIA PVT LTD (Pedigree Dog Food)

The best Customer Service I have encountered so far – they meet all the five requirements above.

2. RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland)

Though personal interaction at the bank branch has scope for improvement, the online customer care is prompt and efficient. Lodging a complaint is quite tedious, but once you manage to do that, things move quite swiftly and efficiently, you are kept informed at each stage and they ask you to confirm satisfactory resolution and solicit feedback.

3. ICICI Bank

It is easy to submit an online complaint and the same is promptly acknowledged. Thereafter you are hounded by a variety of customer care executives and relationship managers on phone and they send you emails too – but unfortunately that is where it all ends.

Most of these customer care executives and relationships managers are quite clueless and only indulge in sweet-talk but no effort is made to resolve your grievance or complaint.

It may sound astounding but some of these customer service executives and relationship managers even have the temerity to talk about investments rather than solve your complaint.

I am sorry to say that in the few occasions that I have raised a grievance I have not received a satisfactory resolution.

Also they have pruned down their online complaint options so now you cannot comprehensively and clearly enter your grievance online on the website.

Since the online or telephonic customer service is quite ineffective, for getting my complaints resolved, I had to personally visit a branch of ICICI Bank.

4. Reliance Communications

Today I received an SMS message on my Reliance Mobile Number: “Your Subscription to Reliance Voice Chat Service has been renewed at Rs. 30 for 30 days”

I was bewildered since I had never subscribed to any such voice chat service nor had I ever voice-chatted.

I rang up reliance customer care who stated that as per their records I am being charged every month for voice chat service for the past three months though he agreed that I had never used the service.

When I remonstrated that I had never subscribed to any such voice chat service he said that it may have happened automatically. He said that he would unsubscribe me immediately but could not refund the previous monthly subscriptions already charged since a “third party” was involved. 

When I insisted on a refund, the reliance Customer Care Executive spoke quite rudely in a “couldn’t care less” type of tone and said that these billing mistakes keep happening and nothing can be done now. He also added that it is only a question of 30 rupees a month so why am I so concerned about it. Then he disconnected.

I find this the most unethical customer service and insensitive customer relations management.

I have raised another complaint long back about erratic internet connectivity and slow speeds on Reliance Netconnect Wireless Internet Service due to fluctuating signal strength and zero signal at times. This issue has remained unresolved for many months now. The only reply I get is that this is a technical issue and they are looking into it.

Well the other cell phone providers are no better. Whereas the Reliance Communications customer service is downright rude, Airtel Customer Service is slightly polite, but then they too never resolve the issue. Maybe the monopoly they enjoy has caused them complacency as far as customer relationship management is concerned.

5. State Bank of India is the ultimate in grievance redressal management – they eliminate grievances at Stage 1 itself. They make sure that you just cannot lodge a complaint so they can have a clean slate – a zero complaint regime. If you want to lodge a complaint online, they tell you to contact your Home Branch and when you go to your Home Branch they tell you to submit the complaint online – and they send you round and round in a spin till your grievance disappears.

Sweet Talk is not a substitute for Good Customer Service.

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR, CUSTOMER SERVICE and REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

A Layman’s View

By

VIKRAM KARVE

High on Promise but Low on Delivery. 

This sentence aptly encapsulates my recent experiences with customer service.

In the current scenario, it appears that Customer Service comprises two processes. First, we have the white-collar Customer Care Representatives who are all sweet talk (in many cases this process may be outsourced). Then, we have the blue-collar “technicians” who just do not deliver satisfactory service on the ground.

Sweet Talk is not a substitute for good Customer Service.

The customer service representatives make lofty assurances and raise expectations in you, but you are in for a big disappointment when the operations or technical service personnel do not meet those high expectations and you actually receive unsatisfactory or sub-standard service.

I will give you a few recent examples of High on Promise but Low on Delivery customer service from my personal experience.

Let me start with a recent experience of unsatisfactory customer service from a bank and then I will give you other examples also.

I had a very high opinion of ICICI Bank for many years until a recent rather upsetting experience of indifferent, insensitive and unresponsive customer service changed my impression of ICICI Bank.

More than two months ago, my daughter’s ICICI Bank Debit Card was stolen from the Ladies locker room of her gym. As she reached home from the gym, she started receiving mobile alert SMS regarding some purchases made on her debit card. She checked her purse and found her debit card missing.

She immediately called up ICICI Bank 24 Hour Customer Care Centre and informed them about the theft of the debit card and fraudulent use of the debit card as intimated by the SMS mobile alert. I must say that the customer service representative acted promptly and efficiently and did three things: he blocked the debit card, he recorded the complaint regarding fraudulent withdrawal by misuse of the debit card (which he could see on his computer) and initiated a request for reissue of a new card. 

So far so good, we were quite happy with the sweet talk and his assurances of prompt action.

I wondered how a thief could misuse the debit card, which has the signature of the holder on the reverse. Once you present your debit card to the merchant, he is supposed to swipe it, print out two copies of the chargeslip and then give you the charge-slips which you must verify for correctness and affix your signature. Then, he is required to match your signature with the one on the reverse of the debit card. Only after verifying that the two signatures match is he to process the transaction further. If the signature on the charge-slip does not match the signature on the debit card, the merchant must stop the transaction and alert the bank immediately.

Evidently, it appears that the proper procedure was not followed in this case. This is a lapse on the part of the merchant and hence the merchant who permitted the fraudulent purchase by misuse of the debit card is liable to pay up and the amount must be refunded to the customer. Surely ICICI Bank can examine the merchant’s charge slip, compare the signatures, and in case they do not match, then recover the money from the merchant for negligence and refund the money to the customer. Also, I understand that these debit cards are insured (zero liability protection) to cover purchases made on lost or stolen cards.

Over two months have passed. All the required information and documents have been submitted to ICICI Bank. Whenever we enquire about the progress of the case, the customer care representatives seem clueless and ask the same questions again and again and sweetly assure us that the matter will be settled soon. And every time there is a new sweet-talking customer service representative who makes us answer the same queries repeatedly. However, sadly, nothing is moving on the ground and we are still at square one. Whether this is due to sheer incompetence or is it a ploy to confuse and wear out the customer, I do not know.

Personal visits to the bank yielded no results as there they told my daughter to call up customer care. Even for reissue of the debit card, she was made to run from pillar to post and it took more than one month for the card to arrive which was not delivered at our address but she was asked to collect it from the bank. (Apparently, the courier could not find our address, though we regularly receive all correspondence from ICICI Bank there for so many years).

Escalation of the grievance to the nodal officer and above, as per the grievance redressal procedure on ICICI Bank website, bore no fruit, and nothing happened, except a few more sweet talking calls from the call centre asking the same questions again and again. It looks like everything was going round and round in a circle. Every time they promise the speedy resolution of the matter, but until today they have not delivered on their promises.

This High on Promise but Zero on Delivery customer service strategy puts the customer in a spin so maybe the customer feels helpless and hapless and gets fed up of banging her head against the wall and finally gives up pursuing the matter. That is exactly what my daughter feels – she is so fed up that she has thrown up her hands in despair and given up pursuing the issue. ICICI Bank has won.

As far as I am concerned, from this episode I have derived an impression that ICICI Bank Debit Cards are not adequately secure and I wonder whether one’s money is safe in ICICI Bank.

In contrast, it is not easy to misuse a State Bank of India Debit Card, because here, in addition to signing the charge slip, you are required to enter your secret PIN number when making a purchase. Thus, I feel the SBI Cards are more secure – it may not be possible for a thief to make a purchase on a stolen SBI debit card since he would not know your secret PIN number.

So, my daughter, for whom I had so proudly opened a “kiddies” account long back in ICICI Bank, has decided to bear the losses and forget about the matter, close her ICICI Bank account and shift to some other nationalised bank where she feels her money will be more secure. I too, who had a very high opinion of ICICI Bank, am wondering why the organisational behaviour towards the customer is so indifferent, leading to such inept customer service.

In my opinion, Poor Customer Service adversely affects the reputation of an organization. It appears that some organizations are not bothered about their reputation and take their customers for granted. Reputation declines when experience of an organization falls short of expectations and one of the key factors that can damage the reputation of an organization is poor customer service.

The value of reputation is frequently under-estimated because it is rarely measured. Reputation is a vital asset of an organization, particularly is the organization is a business enterprise. Whether personal or organizational, once reputation goes down, it is most difficult to restore. Reputations take years to build, but a moment to destroy. No wonder that Warren Buffet uttered these famous words: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it and if you understand this you will do things differently”

Many organizations assume that customers buy products. I feel that customers buy relationships. Acquiring a new customer is more difficult and expensive than retaining a happy and satisfied customer. Good relationships with a customer will not only get you repeat business but also bring in new customers as a result of the good word spread around by your happy and satisfied customers which will also enhance the organization’s spoken reputation. I, therefore, feel that organizations need to spruce up their organizational behaviour to emphasize a customer-responsive culture and deliver to their customers what they promise.

I feel the leitmotif of customer relationship management should be “High on Promise and High on Delivery” or to put it simply Deliver what you Promise and organizational behaviour must be tailored accordingly to meet this objective and enhance the organization’s reputation.

To be continued …

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