A few recent episodes involving consumer product companies and service providers with whom I had the misfortune to interact have reinforced my belief that it is a painful process to get decent customer service in this country! Needless to add, these were pretty grim and sad experiences that created strong post-purchase dissonance and one wondered whether these companies had perfected the art of customer disservice. What were these companies guilty of?
A variety of misdemeanours ranging from repeated product failures within the warranty period, withholding key product information at the time of sale, complete lack of response to complaints and above all, hiding behind the veil of call centres. The phrase that came to my mind after these agonising experiences was caveat emptor, for which an apt explanation is provided in Wikipedia: “The phrase caveat emptor arises from the fact that buyers often have less information about the good or service they are purchasing, while the seller has more information. Defects in the good or service may be hidden from the buyer, and only known to the seller. Thus, the buyer should beware.”
Further, at the time of purchase, the post-warranty AMC charges are seldom communicated to the customer. For starters, the Government can encourage manufacturers of consumer durable products to offer a minimum of two-year warranty as well as stipulate annual maintenance charges, beyond the warranty period, clearly stated, in writing, prior to the sale.
Lodging a complaint has now become a nightmare and one needs extraordinary patience and a lot of time on hand to lodge a complaint through a call centre. There are no set time limits for complaint resolution and the customer is left to fret and fume, while the device is dysfunctional.
Unlike earlier, the retailer is no longer responsible for entertaining complaints. Returning a defective product and obtaining a refund, in a quick and easy manner, is simply not possible in the current Indian retail scenario.
Need more norms & rules One way of mitigating the woes of the consumer is for the Government to insist that all companies, including e-commerce firms, marketing consumer products or services specify an office (either their own or that of a distributor) in every state and district capital which can be reached over the telephone or visited by the aggrieved consumer in case there are undue delays in attending to the complaint.
Standards need to be set for complaint resolution and similar to the telecom companies, all internet-based marketing companies need to set up their own appellate authority for dealing with unresolved complaints.
With the e-commerce wave sweeping the country, consumers need protection more than ever. These e-commerce firms need to be held legally liable for any product failure or defect and compensation thereof. An additional measure to improve the complaint redress process would be to get all companies to file a monthly return to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs listing the complaints received and their status.
One common refrain in management books is that the market is the best judge of all, implying that the companies that offer poor products or services will lose out in the long run.
While this is true in more evolved economies, in developing countries such as India, the Government needs to put in place relevant measures to prevent errant firms from taking consumers for a ride. No doubt the Department of Consumer Affairs has rules, regulations and a process in place but how many consumers are in the first place aware of these and what is the time taken for resolving a complaint?
In dealing with customer complaints, the additional cost or the loss of opportunity to the consumer is conveniently forgotten by all – if your water purifier does not work, then you end up buying bottled water at additional cost or if your TV goes on the blink for several days owing to satellite problems of the service provider, then you lose the opportunity to watch your favourite programmes, and so on.
It may take quite a while, in this country, for customer service to get embedded into the DNA of manufacturing or service companies but till then, we need the Government to put in appropriate measures to protect the consumer.
Shanker Gopalkrishnan is a management consultant.