Customer Service at its Best

Last weekend I enjoyed a Pizza party thrown by a friend of mine at a Pizza restaurant. It was a first time I visited the place on J M Road. I found the place very cozy with quite cheerful staff. I reached there so early and before the schedule time; I came to know this when I made an enquiry with the attendant. I decided to wait for other party men. The staff made me comfortable with playing good music and offering a nice soft drink.

I just took a manual laid on the dining table assuming it was a menu card, in fact, it was a questionnaire-manual used for conducting interviews of new employees to the restaurant. I was curious to know the contents. It was a set of two tests comprised of sixty-eight attitudinal questions and a mathematical test. First few lines were basic instructions for the candidate as to know objectives of customer service. The instructions explained that a new joiner was supposed to answer all questions and the evaluation was to be done on the basis of judging attitude of the person towards customer satisfaction and a general ability to process calculations. The particular questionnaire was meant for each prospective new joiner who would work as to take and serve orders to customers. It was a set of probing questions on general awareness about customer satisfaction as a sole objective of the service, and communication skills, etiquettes, punctuality, and an ability to handle tricky and uncommon situations. I felt it very interesting that such a screening test is applied for every new joiner. I had a chat with the manager of the restaurant by taking prior permission and asking to excuse me for reading the manual without prior permission. He expressed, “Our success is largely depending on the overall experience we aspire to create for our customers. You can see each activity of our business process is directed to create a pleasant experience for our customer; from reception to send-off and from serving delicious food to playing favorite music, we all aim to retain our customers forever. In the whole process, our each and every staff plays very important role as to make customer feel happy to be here with us. We suppose the food is only a reason for our customers and the rest experience of spending a very good time with us at our restaurant is what meant all for them. Hence, we ensure that each new joiner is aware of this fact and wishes to actively participate with us in this process.”

Later, all party-men came and we had a nice treat served with great care and comfort. It was really a good experience resulted out of a very good designed and implemented customer service.

A man of Principles: Late Chandrakant Gokhale

A man of Principles: Late Chandrakant Gokhale

“A man of Principles”, this is how the closest friends of Chandrakant Gokhale remembered him while mourning over his sad demise on 20th June 2008. His son and renowned actor, Vikram Gokhale, called his father as an extreme follower of principles.
Chandrakant Gokhale has worked almost 75 years on Marathi stage. During the period of over 60 years, he acted in 68 Marathi movies, 16 Hindi films and a couple of Hindi/Marathi TV serials. Gokhale acted in 64 stage plays during his memorable career. He started working with likes of Bhalji Pendharkar and Baburao Pendharkar the ones who founded Marathi film industry and very recently he was working on a project of a young Marathi director. He has worked with at least three generations of artists and he was still working as if he always wanted to work till his last breath. We know him as a great artist.
However, he was also known as a man of principles, a very simple and polite man. He lived through very hard times as an artist in his younger days. Those were the days, when artist used to earn very small amount; often it was very difficult to run a family. He would feel accountable of not being able to provide his children adequately; however he was a proud father of very talented children. He would express to his children how much fortunate he was to have such talented and very good children.
His son and renowned artist Vikram Gokhale described his father as self-reliant man. He did not hesitate to say that his father refused his monetary support and wanted to stay self-reliant. Chandrakant Gokhale used to worship Vinayak Sawarkar, famously known as Swatantryaveer Sawarkar. Chandrakant Gokhale was a real patriotic person and was helping in his ways to disabled soldiers and war widows. With the accumulated interest on his fixed deposits in the bank, he used to donate one lakh rupees every year to the cause of soldiers who defend our boundaries. When he could not make it to one lakh rupees a year, due to reduced rate on interests; he used to take only a meal a day and to save money to add it to a lakh rupees every year. It was his principle decision, that to save and donate a lakh rupees every year at the cost of his own health. He was struggling with cancer but he was worried about how could he help the cause of soldiers. The world would remember him as a very good artist and as a very good human being.

...he is also a successful person in the life.

Who is successful in life?
I remember I was in 7th Standard class at my school. One day, one of my classmates asked the teacher who is called a successful person. Actually he had read some news of a successful businessman in a newspaper and so he asked the teacher. He asked her if being financially successful in a business or profession makes a person successful in the life.

The teacher was herself a scholar and a renowned poet. She chose to tell a story to us; about an incidence happened to her a couple of weeks back when she happened to meet one of her old student. She told us, she had gone for shopping in a local market and was buying a packet of incense sticks from a boy. The boy smiled at her and asked if she remembered him. The teacher apologized for not being able to remember him by his name however she confirmed that the boy might have been her student in the past. She asked about him, and his family. The boy briefed him about himself, about his family and about his small trading of incense sticks. He insisted the teacher if she could visit his home which was quite near to the market. The teacher went to his home and on the way the boy told him…how he couldn’t continue his regular schooling because of sudden death of his father and so he had to carry his family’s responsibilities on his younger shoulders. The teacher went to his home and met his mother, who praised her son as he was very much successful in carrying responsibilities of his family alone.

The teacher cited this example of a boy – Who at a very younger age had to leave his formal schooling behind to take on lessons of life in all adverse conditions of poverty, sudden death of father and taking over entire responsibilities of the family including his younger sister’s formal schooling.
The teacher said – he is also a successful person in the life.

An artist had to finish his life.

Today my day started being upset. I got my newspaper early in the morning and couple of news caught my attention. They made me upset; yet one of them was a good news. On the very front page I read that Sensex was making recovery and possibilities of its growth were predicted. This was very good news for the investors and for those whose financial life lines are determined by the fluctuations in the stock market.

The second news was really a painful. It was about, one more suicide by a farmer from Vidardba region of Maharashtra due to already increased debts and recent losses made by untimely heavy rains in the region.

Normally we get used to particular incidents happening repeatedly and our sensitivities and reactions to such regularly happening incidents become normal. We all have got used to news of farmers committing suicides in regular intervals. We know, it is happening very unfortunate and we will not be shocked if this continues to happen in the future. For a while and so we feel upset and then we leave it behind.

However, today’s news of a farmer’s suicide was very saddening and was very painful. The farmer was a well-known poet in the region. He was already under heavy debts and his sensitive poetic mind could not bear the pains of losses caused by untimely heavy rains. He left a suicidal note. He expressed his depression in the lines of a poem. He expressed that nothing could have been happened so depressing than untimely rain caused unbearable loss to his growing crops. He found no ways to bear this loss and finished his life.

Media should refrain itself...

A couple of months ago a news of kidnapping of a Mumbai based businessman’s son projected as breaking news on a TV news channel. Latter this was followed by the news of murder of the kidnapped boy by kidnappers.

Last year a Hindi TV news channel (names itself `the best of all’) broke news of an extra marital affair of a 53 year old Patna based Hindi Professor with a girl student, who is of too younger than the Professor. The news channel did not stop itself there but held several talk shows and also brought the professor, his wife and his girlfriend to the show in order discuss their very personal matters. This was imitated by a few Hindi TV news channels latter, as it was their main news-story subject.

A year ago in a birthday party, a pop singer kissed a dancer girl who is famous as item number in Hindi movies. This incident was followed with the item number girl lodged a police complaint against the pop singer. This incident was shown and discussed by a TV channel (includes `India’ in its name) as if the issue was of national importance. Recently, the same news channel followed the pop singer and the dancer girl to receive their reactions on the occasion of completion of a year to past kissing incident. This was certainly height of their non-sense.

All three incidents are distinct but they share a similarity that all three were projected as so called `breaking news’ on TV news channels. The consequence of the first incident was so severe that the kidnappers after watching the news of their kidnapping on TV, feared of arrest and immediately killed the kidnapped boy. The second and third incident put serious questions on journalistic abilities of the concerned news correspondence and the channel authorities. All three incidents showed that these journalists forgot basic values of journalism on which the journalism stands.

On the incident of kidnapping of boy, the concerned TV channel did not bother to think possible consequences of such a hasty act of flashing the news repeatedly on TV. They calculated their business motive more profitable than the precious life of somebody. The news breaker and then the news correspondence and his channel behaved in irresponsible manner to indirectly cause a victim. They showed their obsessiveness toward such shocking news however, a very heavy price had been paid by parents of the boy. The parents and relatives of the boy lashed out at media personnel who went on quickly to cover reactions over killing of the kidnapped boy. They asked media personnel if they could at least be allowed to moan death of their loved one in peace.

The news telecasts related to the Professor’s affair and kissing act of a pop singer reached disgusting low levels. The news channel behaved hysteric while following these incidents and their news anchors seemed mediators of a dispute between two parties disputing in a `mohalla’. The concerned news channel showed their poor class and made mockery themselves. The TRP was very important from their perspective than fair professionalism.

There are serious concerns raised over `media’s hysteric behavior’ in the pursuit of `breaking news’ and TRP. The former president of India while speaking recently at the Ramnath Goenka Memorial Debate highlighted media’s crucial role in nation building process and he appealed media should refrain itself from being hysteric over making `breaking news’ and `TRPs’.

For many years we all know that in this way or that way a few print media and some TV news channels are politically biased and they keep endorse political agenda of their closely related political leaders and parties. However, their being `hysteric’ and ‘irresponsible’ over likes of three representative incidences brings disrepute to the profession of journalism. Certainly, such media personnel should relearn and act by the basic principles and values of journalism, otherwise journalism will very soon be called a `corrupt’ and ‘opportunistic’ profession.

Is it really a `social work' activity?

I have been working in an India based MNC. My company takes pride to be associated with a local NGO working for underprivileged group of people. The association of my company is not only confined to charity or donations but it ensures that interested employees do participate as volunteers in NGO sponsored activities.

One of the colleagues of mine received a periodical mail appealing to be a volunteer and participant in the NGO sponsored activity. The activity was to spend some time on a festival day with orphanage children. He asked me if he could send my nomination too along with his nomination. He didn’t stop there, further, he asked all his closed colleagues to join him to participate in `social work’. It gave him pride to send our forceful nominations to join him in so called `social work’ activity. Upon asking him, he said it was matter of only two hours spending there, distributing sweets and new clothes to orphanage children. He said thus he was going to be altruistic and helpful.

The intension is fair to spend two hours with orphanage children, sharing some time with them, however in the name of `social work’ is something really questionable.

First, I do admit that my friend was being individual specific to define his spending two hours as `social work’. However, he is not the only to feel and do in this way, the original sensible meaning of `social work’ has been lost.

The politicians, celebrities, NGOs and media have been responsible to change the meaning of `social work’. The motives of politicians and celebrities behind participating in social activities are to gain publicity and yet media gives them name of `social workers’, nobody bothers to think what really is social work? Is spending sometime with underprivileged while seeking publicity becomes social work and gives a sense of altruism?

In India, social work research has shown that there are only a few NGOs which are engaged in implementing serious social work activities and methods and the rest are only remained fund raising firms. These fund raising firms have given a bad name to social work. They are happy to invite celebrities, top businessmen and from recently to MNC employees to spend sometime with their inmates. They are happy because their invitees give them funds, do not raise serious questions on their genuine social work abilities and hence in turn they give publicity to celebrity invitees. The NGO associated with my company is of same kind. The way it appeals is somewhat like `instant social work and instant fame’, provided you donate them in money or kinds.

If one feels serious about contributing to social work activities like this, then must ask some simple following questions to himself:-

Is spending two hours, distributing sweets on a festival day, giving away new clothes in the exchange of publicity, a real social work?

Is spending two hours, distributing sweets on a festival day, giving away new clothes make people at the receiving end really benefited? Or is it just making them dependent on being happy if something received from others?

I do not intend to define social work here, but strongly criticize growing false sense of social work and altruism among the educated people and considered as intellectuals too.

Practice makes you stay Perfect !

"Practice makes you perfect, it is true. However, regular practice only makes you stay perfect." I read this quotation in the past and experienced the meaning of the first sentence personally. I got convinced truth of the second sentence recently when I heard about a small incidence from my friend who referred it while making me understood the importance of regular practice recognized by even great performers.

Once a famous Indian classical vocalist and a foremost exponent of Hindustani classical music and Mewati Gharana was on a visit to a place where he was requested by host local citizens to perform. Knowing the greatness of Panditaji the hosts assumed that he could perform his best anytime and went onto insist him. Panditaji was very polite and humble to refuse their request.

He said that he would not be able to perform at his best because he had not had his riyaaz on that day.

No one else could have underlined the importance of regular practice (riyaaz) better than Panditji. The greatest like him thinks, he needs regular practice to perform his Perfect best. No matter how much great you are and how many times have you performed the best in the past, you need regular practice to stay Perfect !