The service industry in a service-dominant country

For the entire duration of this MAP, one thing that has been haunting me in the service levels provided to us in this service-dominant country. I had been hearing about the Government sector having been clogged by the corruption and things not moving from one table to another and it will be a folly to compare my getting a driver’s license in less than 24 hours here in the US to the things back home; however what surprise me or rather shocked me this time was level of services in the private sector in India. So let me start giving you a few examples before I start –

First Time

Being a telecom analyst, I had believed that India has one of the most advance services in the world simply because we are a late arrival and do not bear the weight of legacy networks. However, here is what happened when I applied to Data services of Reliance. First of all, I had to furnish all the documents ranging from my passport to the letter from J&J in order to get a connection – the reason given: We are a country suffering from terrorism and we need to be doubly sure – my only contention was that if I can produce a forged driving license and a forged passport how long should it take me to forge a company’s letter head. Anyways those fell on deaf ears anyways. So after 3 days, I had my connection working and as I was heading to Delhi the same day I was happy to have some way to connect to the rest of the world on my field trip.

31 March – I reached Delhi and the connection was not working. After I called the customer care, I was told that I need the STD to be activated for using the internet services in Delhi as I had a Mumbai connection. Why on earth did they give me this connection, when I told them specifically that I would be traveling to North India in 3 days and I need to use it there. Anyways, the agent told me that I need to wait for 3 hours and this will be taken care off.
4th April – I kept calling the customer care every three hours since the last time I called them, and kept getting the same 3 hours crap. I finally lost it all and asked them to connect to the manager. I told him that I have lost 9,000 USD as my connection is not working and I am unable to sell my shares online and he better get this thing sorted or I will go to the consumer courts and sue reliance. He said it will surely be done by 9 AM tomorrow. It was 11 PM that time.

5th April – The net was still not working and this time I was told that the STD is fine but the roaming facility is not activated and it will take 3 hours to get that started.

10th April – The net was finally working – two days before I had to leave back for Mumbai!

The Second Time

Well this is a story about net again, I got this 80 rupees an hour card from my hotel and found that the net in my room I not working. I called up the maintenance and they asked me to do all sort of weird things ranging from changing the nodes of the network wire, starting the PC again to holding the jacks with both hands and trying again! Finally as I asked the guy to come to my room and sort it out, one lazy fellow reached in half an hour and tried some funny things again before declaring that the cable is not working and I need to get another cable. I said well fine, get me one… “It will cost you 35 rupees…” “To hell why?... this is supposed to come along the internet card” “Yeah but that is not working” “So what can I do, it is not working and I should get a replacement” “No sir, this got damaged here in this room and you will have to pay” “Okay go ahead and get me another one” I had to budge. It was 35 rupees more against the sunk cost of 80 rupees. Te guy brought another cable in another half an hour and after trying for some more time declared “Sorry sir, the cable on this floor was destroyed by mice last night so that might be the problem”… “So what can I do… you change my room” “Sir please call the reception for that…” and the guy left without even waiting for a response. “Sorry sir the hotel is completely booked and we cant give you any other room… ” Everyone is too busy to listen for a response… anyways it was pretty late by that time and I decided to sunk the 35+80 rupees and some prestige with that.

The Last Nail

It is funny how you get delayed in these flights and then the whole world crumbles around you. After reaching at Mumbai at 1:00 AM after a delay of 5 hours, I decided to check with my hotel to ensure my booking. “Yes sir, we have your room ready”. 1:45 I was at hotel and yet the room was getting cleaned… 3:00 AM still the same and I was loosing my patience in the hotel lobby, sleeping over my luggage… finally we got a suite for us… A SUITE!!! We wanted two separate rooms so that poor Nitesh can sleep without listening to my singing the whole night… what happened to our rooms. “Sir I don’t know, you talk to the manager in the morning”… to hell with it, and Nitesh and I decided to wait until we get another room… at 5 we had the other room and this suite and I slept in the luxury of a suite for the first time. Not for long though, as I got a call at 7 AM telling me to be ready to shift to my room. Again the guy didn’t bother to listen to my side. I called up reception this time and found the same guy… after asking him if he was the one who called I said I slept at 5 in the morning and there is no way I am shifting now… if he has it come upstairs and try to wake me up… this was my time to click the phone without bothering to listen… well I could not sleep after that and finally called the guy again to shift my room at 7:30… “I am just sending someone upstairs sir” and then I waited again till 10:30!!!