Customer Service

   A customer is considered as a god for any business for reasons known and customer service is taken very seriously these days even in a very small business. Losing one good customer can make a huge impact especially if the business is in its early stages. During team meetings, owners/managers who run the day to day operations stress the importance of customer service and even run loyalty programmes to retain customers and constantly strive to get feedback from customers just to make sure service level is satisfactory. Customer service in India has grown leaps and bounds and nice to see professional attitude from Businesses. These days I see staff in Hotels/Hospitals with uniform dress for customers to identify the staff, Toll free number/feedback form to register feedbacks, automated call to register complaints, Courteous staff who had undergone some Training on how to handle Customers from all walks of life, Training on communication skills for staff who are customer facing etc., Tier 1 city differs from Tier 2 and based on the city we may see service level varying and I would like to bring one example on how customer service works in Tier 2 or 3 level cities.

     Let us take a Family restaurant in a place like Tanjore – assume a big group consisting of 20 people who have decided to have dinner together. Group consists of babies, toddlers, teenagers, aunts, uncles and Grandparents – server who is going to take care of the group realizes this is a great opportunity to show his hospitality skills. His calculation runs like if the group stays for 1-2 hours then the bill may come close to 10,000 INR and seeing how affluent people are they may tip me 500 so he is all excited and pumped up. To start with group starts ordering Soups and starters – baby is cranky and parents realize they need server’s help at times to make funny faces, kids wanted tomato sauce to the extent we don’t know whether ketchup is a main dish or a condiment. Server realizing this brought the entire bottle to the table and next set of dishes include Naan, Ceylon parotta, romali roti, chapathi etc., along with side dishes are ordered and served. Uncle while reaching out to one of the dishes spills Navaratna kurma by mistake and server remembers owner’s golden words “Go out of the box to help your customer” and immediately offers to replace the dish at no extra cost which makes Uncle blush like a new bridegroom. Granny while having malai kofta realizes it is too spicy and wants something to be done else she may not end up having her favorite koftas – Server recollects another set of golden words “Be friendly with our customers” and immediately offers granny that malai kofta will be reworked to make it less spicy. Aunty is in her diet hence feels butter naan is too buttery (Note the point my Honor – Aunty expected BUTTER naan to be without Butter) and once again server realizes customer service is the key and replaced the dish much to the delight of aunty who seems to glow much better than Kohinoor diamond. Server did an outstanding job and one ritual which every server should learn these days is to take a family picture which he did and Uncle paid him 500 as tip which the server accepted happily.

     Now all this is good but there is other side to it – customers who visit the shop on frequent basis were not treated the same way since as per Server he knows whatever service he does to the regular visitors all he is going to be paid is only 20 as tip; Also some of the inventory like Ketchup may run out of stock and server has to say no to some customers; They may have extra ketchup bottles in store room but that maybe locked since stocks are taken out only on need basis. Also lots of redo work makes the cook busier which increases waiting time for other customers. So long story short customer service is in abundance for some customers at the cost of few customers; The 20 members group may not come again since it was a family get together that may happen rarely but the frequent visitors who has the habit of coming regularly may stop coming due to the poor service. For an owner this is a blow and something which he cannot spot unless he is on top of this; Owner’s words on Customer service is cleverly misused by his employees and that is why some owners are afraid to give free hand to their staff as far as customer service since they are aware of the fact staff may play it to their advantage. Just apply my blog on any given business in a Tier 2 city and you will be able to relate to what I am saying and once again not everyone does this but because of selected few whole group comes under the radar.

Humanity at its best – P Subramanian sir (Shanthi Gears); Dr.Shanta mam (Adyar Cancer institute)

  I would like to talk about two people from Tamil Nadu who recently passed away but the amount of social service these people did will forever be etched in people’s memory for decades. Normally I write stuff based on what I know but for this blog I had to go and read few articles in Internet since they completely did everything behind the scenes away from shutterbugs. In a world of Granite kalvettu where people want their name to be imprinted for anything and everything here are two people who believed service has to be selfless and uncompromising and thereby set great standards when it comes

to Hospitality and Healthcare sector respectively. Let us know more about these two personalities.

Respected P Subramanian Sir:
  Subramanian sir finished his studies in PSG college and established a firm in Coimbatore to manufacture gears in the year 1969. With steady growth the company got into stock exchange in the year 1986 and it was the third largest player in India in the gear manufacturing sector. Later the company was acquired by Murugappa group of companies and sir started to concentrate on social and philanthropic activities through Shanthi social service. Foundation runs a canteen, hospital and a pharmacy. Canteen provides free food for set of people every day and also food at nominal price for others; hospital and pharmacy were run not for profits but to benefit poor and downtrodden. Foundation also runs a Petrol pump where it sells petrol based on the price it arrived and only when old stock is consumed it revises price based on the new rate. Apart from this the foundation runs Blood bank, diagnostic centre, eye care centre and LPG crematorium. Personally I have heard very good reviews about the food served in his canteen and also the affordable rates the pharmacy offers for its customers. Also few thousands of people benefit from canteen every day and cleanliness is something that is given  lots of importance. Sometime in the past when I was roaming around in T nagar, Chennai during Summer I saw a mud pot with drinking water and there was a flex board much bigger than the pot on top of it to mention who sponsored the water. In such a world all the philanthropic activities mentioned above happened when people did not even know the face of the donor and only when he died people got to see his face.

Respected V Shanta mam:
   Shanta mam was the Chairperson of Adyar Cancer Institute and one of India’s senior Oncologist. Mam was one of the pioneers in cancer care making it affordable for patients. Shanta mam is the grand niece of CV Raman sir and after completing her school education she took up Medicine as her profession. She completed MBBS in Madras Medical college followed by DGO in 1952 and MD in Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 1954, Muthulakshmi Reddy was the first woman medical graduate of  India and she along with Women’s India association founded first cancer institute and Shanta mam  joined as a medical officer. Right from being Medical officer to Chairperson mam has seen the Cancer institute grow to phenomenal heights. Mam dedicated her life for poor and needy and lived in the Hospital premises throughout her life so that she can be available for patients round the clock. Just to name some of the major achievements from the institute – Duty exemption for cancer drugs, free travel for cancer patients in Trains and buses, Start of pediatric oncology unit and she was India’s first Pediatric Oncologist. I believe awards such as Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan got honored since she got those awards. She dedicated 60 years of medical service studying the disease,  prevention of the disease, creation of specialists and scientists in different aspects of oncologic sciences. She was on the WHO advisory committee on Cancer, convenor of the state advisory board and member of many ICMR committees. Many screening centres were setup in different parts of Tamil nadu and she just reiterates the fact that if people come early then cancer can be cured and wanted to dispel fear amongst public when it comes to the disease. According to news reports she did not want any final rituals to be performed instead wished her ashes should be sprinkled all over the institute.
 

    I wish I knew more about these wonderful people when they were alive as I would have loved to have  a conversation with them. It is absolutely surprising to know that they never wanted to hog the  limelight and always want their work to overshadow any sort of advertisement they get through their work. We can find people who does social service but doing selfless service without being in the limelight and with hardly any media coverage speaks volumes regarding their personality. World needs more such people and through this blog I have paid my tribute to these two great souls. 

                                                          My pranams to both of them ......

Evergreen Tamil movie Dialogues !!

 Going back to our past and reminiscing things we have enjoyed is a wonderful feeling and this happens whenever we see our old albums. One such thing is some of my favorite tamil movie dialogues which I have enjoyed in the past which still bring a curve in my face when I watch these. The dialogue writers who wrote these in those days would have never dreamt that their dialogues are going to be evergreen. These dialogues are very simple and something that happens next door and that is why it reached people. Let me go over five such dialogues; There are two conditions before you can relate to the following dialogues - you watch Tamil films, you were born in 80's and peak of your childwood were in 90's . 

Interview scene in Thillu Mullu: Thalaivar as Aiyampettai Arivudainambi Kaliyaperumal Chandran and Thengai Srinivasan as Sriramachandramurthy were absolutely brilliant; Direction by KB sir and dialogues by Visu just complimented each other - it had Intelligence, humour, sarcasm, political affiars, philosophy, modesty, humbleness, Patriotism, Economics etc., No matter how many times you watch you always enjoy

En Pondatty Ooruku Poita in Agni Nakshatram:  Janagaraj sends off his wife Thangamani to his In laws place for delivery and expresses disappointment but as soon as the bus leaves he goes about shouting his wife left ....I have seen many of my friends as well as their spouses relate to this scene and even the Tamil Diaspora abroad is no exception ..somehow people are reminded of this dialogue when their wife visits Inlaws place. Maniratnam being categorized as a multiplex director penned this one and one of those dialogues which had a huge reach among Tamil audience. 

Ek Gaon me ek Kisan Raghu Thaata in Endru poi Naalai Vaa: Trust me this is one line which made everyone in Tamil nadu speak Hindi. Everytime when a Tamil guy tries to learn a new language and makes mistakes reading a line then immediately they are taken back to this dialogue. Pampering by grand mother is another aspect in the scene which again depicts slice of life in those days. Bhagyaraj should be given credit for this epic scene. 

Car reverse scene in Aan paavam: In many occasions such as my initial driving classes in India, my new driving classes in Kansas with my roomate, whenever I thought driving for friends I am always reminded of this scene especially while taking reverse. Though the joke may fall into mokkai category but nevertheless it brought smile for the audience. Pandiarajan at his best with simple natural humour with no double meaning dialogues. "Nee mattum engammava katalam naan ungammava katta kudatha" is another epic dialogue and sheer simplicity did wonders. 

Mr.Chandramouli in Mouvna Raagam: Modern day directors have defined romantic scene should possess Lee jeans, U neck T shirt, gucci watch, Coffee day, foreign locales etc., but they forget that romantic scene doesn't need any of these ...Look at the Mr.Chandramouli scene from Mouvna Raagam - sheer brilliance from Mani Ratnam. Revathi comes with a simple dress as a middle class girl, Karthik is uber cool with his body language and dialogues and then comes Revathi's dad who is a middle class retired bank manager. The way in which Revathi reacts after spotting her father in Coffee shop by biting her nails, way in which her Dad is confused talking to Karthik and way in which Karthik makes Revathi's dad believe that they know each other and finally when Revathi is relieved her dad went, she splashes water to Karthik with a water jug with Raja sir's BGM in the background.....Zoom in close up shots of hero and heroine where eyes talk each other ...This is Romance ......

As you can see all five scenes are pretty simple and believe that was the reason people liked so much even these days ...Recently saw a movie Chi la Sow (Telugu movie) and just loved it as the movie was pretty simple and it was just hero and heroine doing all the talking and both of them had just one costume throughout the movie. Best part was heroine appeared in pimples and there is even a dialogue in the movie about her pimples ...when movie dialogues carry slice of life audience tend to relate and enjoy even more and believe the dialogues I mentioned above are just part and parcel of everyday life and that is way these dialogues have been evergreen even after few decades.