Marshall FieldIf not exactly this statement, such is the professional ethos followed and practiced at the work environment I belong to. However I was appalled during my recent trip to Rajasthan, when not once but twice, I was led to think that the following maxim might be true:
“The customer not only is ignorant of what he wants but also has no common sense to think on his feet.”
I ask you, the reader, to help me in my state of quasi-guilt by arguing for or against my case.
Let me outline the two incidents:
1) The place is a popular simulated ethnic/village resort where guests are treated to many games and niceties (e.g: puppet shows, joy rides, soothsayers etc). Most stalls have very courteous shopkeepers. We show up at a stall which promised to dress us up as a Rajasthani folk couple (costumes et al.) and photograph us. The guy at the entrance told us there are two sizes, a smaller photo for Rs. 150 and a bigger one for Rs. 200. That is ALL he said.
I went for the smaller.
After dressing up, we were led to a spot next to the stall where another guy and a camera man were present. All this while, mind you, we were being 'led' by the shop keepers into the 'service' being provided by them. So we go to the spot and the guy says 'You sir stand here and hold the laaThi like this. You maam stand here and give such and such a pose' to which we comply and give our best possible smileys. After the click, before we can think he goes through a quick repeat of instructions for new poses and ....CLICK. After the second click, before we can react, a third round of the same thing.
Now, he comes and asks if we wanted fourth and fifth individual snaps? I ask 'well will that mean an extra charge?' and he says 'Of course that will mean extra charge!'. I said 'If so, no thanks'.
We then undress (OK....relax, we had beneath, our own dresses!) and came to the cash counter. So by this time are you thinking that the deal is 3 snaps for Rs. 150? If so, thank you for the concurrence, thats music to my ears. If no, well blimey yes, I guess I am stupid.
What followed was- I being asked Rs. 450, my flying into a rage on why he din't tell me it was 150-for-each, he pointing me to an obscure A4 size poster on the wall which said that (My miss! I had not seen that) and he arguing vehemently that I as a customer should know what I want and was taking 'him' for a ride. I asked him why he din't tell me before taking us through his 'pose change' routine; he kept arguing I should know better and that I was trying to save money.
Eventually it was clear it was mis-communication and a misunderstanding on my part but what pissed me off was his rudeness to a customer. I paid up the amount, took the snaps and left after noting the email ID of the resort's marketing department.
2) Next we leave that city and reach our next destination, Jaisalmer. I had planned in such a way that soon after my train arrives (at 12.45pm) I should be able to check-in to the hotel and discuss options with the hotel guys for a Camel safari to a sunset point. I was aware that most options involve leaving to the sunset place, famous for desert dunes, at 3pm.
Now the first glitch in the plan was that the train arrived at Jaisalmer at 1.55pm. By the time I got out of the station with all luggage and got to the hotel it was 2.20pm. I had, however, managed to get 2 options for the Camel safari to the most popular spot, Sam Dunes, by the time I reached the hotel and both would need us to leave by 3.30pm.
When I checked in, I inquired about the service that the hotel provides for the safari. I got to know that their service is a bit more specialized and customized, in the sense that they take guests to a different exclusive spot and not Sam Dunes. Also, they needed us to leave sharp 3pm in a shared vehicle. Again, this is ALL he said, that mattered, about the camel safari service.
So now, the situation is we are damn hungry, haven't taken a bath and need to decide quickly which option to take. At first the exclusive option given by the hotel sounded good so I told the hotel recetion person 'Okay, we will go but we might need more time to get ready'. This was at 2.40pm
Then when I called the other guy to say 'No, thanks', he introduced a new idea that Sam dunes are the most popular and that the place chosen by the hotel would only give a faint and insufficient feeling of being in a desert. This put us back in confusion. Deepthi and I regrouped and decided to not go with the hotel, also keeping in mind that lunch had still not arrived. So we switched sides to the other option to go to Sam Dunes. 2.48pm
I accept, it was not the best thing to switch at the last moment, but what happened after this ticked me off, as before.
2.51pm, I call the reception and say 'I am sorry, there are change of plans and since we really do not want to miss Sam Dunes we will go with another provider; please proceed with your guests so far at 3pm. Besides we will take a while to be ready'. For this, the answer I get is 'That's not good news; As soon as you confirmed, we ordered extra cabs and extra camels for you. Now you've to cough up 25% cancellation since you don't want to go'. That would come to around 325 bucks.
Now, I am sure they were right in asking for a cancellation, but for god's sake why would they not have stated that as 'Terms and conditions' as soon as I asked them about the service if there were such hard and fast dependencies. Am I a dodo to switch if I knew about the cancellation terms!? Unintentionally, they came across as somebody who wanted to make a fast buck out of my being undecided. I am sure they did not intend to but that would be the perception. Mind you, there are a dozen providers of the same safari service and guest levels aren't any great after the recent events in India. After a brief but uneasy argument I offered to pay. Eventually they demanded nothing.
Again, I got to hear things like 'You should know...you should think before doing this and that'.
These two incidents also got my BP high and got me into a hyper-argument mode. People who know me well vouch for it that when I am in that mode, the other person, instead of getting cornered and defensive, would feel 'why is he doing this to himself' :) Not sure how I looked this time.
That aside, the question I want to raise is, should we not demand some clarity in every service provided while being a customer? Also, how about watching what you say to a customer even if he is wrong and you are right, or when both parties are clear there wasn't 'crystal clear communication'? Take a look at the Terms and conditions laid out by IRCTC for online booking as an example, no scope for any ambiguity in the service.
To be honest, though I've not mentioned the details of the stall and the hotel, in effect they've lost a customer for ever and I would not be a great promoter of these places. If anybody wanted more details, please contact me.
6 comments:
Most certainly you are not a stupid or idiotic customer. And you have all the right to demand the complete picture of the deal; but you're doing it AFTER the deal was made alva?
Business in such places is a big con act...Ppl who are selling commodities are smart and cunning enough to hide the minor details and mask the rough edges and present a beautiful picture of what you'll be buying. What they say is NOT what you get, most of the time...They'll say oooh camel ride, best spot in the desert, complimentary drinks blah blah and give u a 3 Rupee chai maybe, in distant corner of the desert...And they won't tell u stuff unless u ask them...
But I totally agree with u about the lack of courteousness...Taking care of the customer is an art, seldom found being practiced...
Well if it's seldom practiced, then time to try and change that. Will write to them.
Somewhere, i get the feeling that you assume everything is the responsibility of the provider. Esp regarding the camel ride!!! Wonder if even given to you, do you read the T&C of every document you get? A'la air tickets?
Yes, I do. atleast glance through to see if something catches my eye that I should be aware of. Rest, I learn by the hard way (for example no refund on tatkal tickets, gulp!) once it happens to me, but the fact is its stated at least in the T&C.
Well, by everything if u mean laying down the perimeters of the "provider's" service, then yes it is the provider's responsibility!
Slight deviation from the topic but important:
Laying down the T&C, having a fixed procedure for buying, returning, exchanging stuff are the little things that small businesses should get into the habit of. I wonder if many of them realize how crucial it is to have a kind of system for such things. For instance: i'd rather buy vegetables from a Reliance fresh or a Foodworld than from a vegetable market where i might find fresher vegetables at a lesser cost ...simply because i dont want to take the trouble of bargaining with the sabziwallas or haggling with them to replace a coconut that turned out rotten inside! I'm probably getting cheated at Foodworld coz i pay slightly more...but i'd still go there because i'm sure i wont hear from a neighbour that he got something for far lesser than i paid!
How many of us go to the small cloth merchants or to tailors to get clothes for festivals or birthdays anymore? Its far easier to go shop at malls. We like the experience of buying in such places so much, we shop all through the year...we dont have to haggle anywhere. Yes, we are paying more than double or triple the cost involved in making the product, but what the hell...we like the experience!
I believe the difference between the vegetable market and a Foodworld or the garment shop and the mall is not just the variety or the quality but mainly the experience.
I guess if the small businesses dont learn that, we'll soon have malls for everything!
Deepthi - I din't know you had such passion for shopping at malls (Gulp!) ;-) but I get what you are saying and I concur.
It's a mix between the experience and the cost that a customer would anyway look for.
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