CALL CENTERS – A HI-TECH CONCEPT IN CUSTOMER DISSERVICE

I would really like to meet that marketing genius who devised Call Centers as a means for improved customer service. I feel this concept has contributed more towards alienating the customer from the producer and thereby promoting customer disservice. And the so called Call Centers devised by big Corporates to help customers, appoint such low quality executives who do not have the basic decency while dealing with the customers. The concept of Call Centers have left the customers as orphans with neither the producers nor their Call Centers having any commitment towards the service to the customer.

The foremost thing is that you can never get your grievance cleared by them in the first attempt wherein you would be allotted a complaint number, only to be told the second time that the number allotted is incorrect. Adding to woes is that you never get to communicate with the same person two times, with the result the executives offer you the most irresponsible replies as they are sure you would not be returning to them again. And if you want to complain against the Call Center, you would again be allotted with a complaint number, which would be again incorrect in all probability.

There was this Call Center of a private insurance company belonging to a big industrial group. When I complained about non-receipt of premium notice, I was told that I would receive only if I ask for it. When I enquired about my interim payment against a money-back policy, they promptly informed they had no idea about it. When I demanded a more responsible answer to it, the executive told I can go and lodge a complaint in the branch office of the company. The next day I visited the address only to find that the company had closed the branch about three months back.

I think it is time that we have a regulatory authority in place to regulate the creation and functioning of Call Centers where responsibilities are to be fixed on the parent companies on an assured standard of quality in services to the customers. The word “Guarantee” and “Warrantee” has to be more clearly defined and put into implementation. In India it has become an order of the day for industries to adopt international practices of business concepts only to use the loopholes in it to deceive the customers and make quick money at the expense of quality and customer satisfaction. The slogans that it is a “Consumers Market” and “Customer is God” is all just part of the larger conspiracy to deceive the helpless customer. Where is the choice for the customer when he has to choose between the Devil and the deep sea.