The customer as consultant

Amonth ago, I sent off seven bond encashment cheques and dividend warrants
for revalidation, in one envelope. I asked for payment by direct credit, and
gave my bank details and email address.

In three days, I started getting letters in the post: each saying thank you...we
are working on it. Seven letters. Two weeks later, fresh cheques came in. Four
by mail, three by courier. Add up the postage, courier and a modest Rs 10 per
letter in other costs, ICICI Bank spent Rs 255 more than it would have for an
email, and direct credit into my account (which is with the same bank). But it
worked.

Should we then care about inefficiencies in a service provider? You bet. For
you and I end up paying for them.

The natural route for customer feedback today is email. How many service
providers use email? Premium card companies? Try the AmEx website: you won't
find a way to send them email. They have phone support, but that helpline is
designed for problem resolution, not feedback. (Okay, an ex-employee gave me a
secret email address for gold card members, which I'm just trying out).

Some banks do receive and act on mail, including HDFC and ICICI. But with the
former, the housing finance group refuses to respond on email. With the latter,
I simply hit the blank wall of a call center, so anything beyond a simple query
is out of the question.

How about the cost of duplicated efforts? I'm offered an AmEx gold card
every few weeks, by phone or mail. I've held two of them for eight years. But
AmEx employees tell me they get these calls too! Wait. Can't AmEx figure out a
simple way to exclude their own employees and customers from their own cold
calls (without handing out full databases to telemarketing agencies)? Why do I
have to pay staggering annual fees for their inefficiencies?

And try resolving an inter-service-provider issue. Every now and then, my
home phones from Airtel or MTNL will be cut off for non-payment. I have
auto-payment instructions for both with BillJunction. Each side blames the
other. I tried using email to get the two parties to talk. I tried conferencing
them. No luck.

Clearly, the Indian enterprise has a long way to go before it can tie its
apps together, around the customer as focal point. I know of some CIOs making a
start on this: hiring consultants for an audit, an EAI initiative...

Here's a cheaper way to start. Make sure you're contactable and have a
clear channel for customer feedback. For tech and tech-enabled services, email
is the best route there is, and is also the easiest to handle. Listen to the
feedback. The customer is your best con-sultant. And he doesn't cha-rge you
per hour: he's happy if you simply listen to him.