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
