The Indian Optician, November-December, 2009 Issue

I think of myself as quite a calm person, who gets along well with most people. My relationships have been generally warm and cordial. I try to stick to my commitments and believe very strongly in truth, ethical behaviour and integrity. Whenever I have sensed people deviating from these values, I have just casually kept distance and walked away from them, rarely losing my cool and creating a raucous.

However, there have been times when my wife and children have had to intervene to get me to keep my temper down and to calm me. These situations, generally, are related to levels of customer service that I find against the values I described above or are straight irritating and unacceptable to me. My sensitivity to such situations, quite possibly, could also be due to heightened awareness due to my involvement in ‘Customer Value Creation’. So maybe I am unreasonable in my assessment to some extent. But I do believe, that to varying degrees, most people would empathise with me.

Also, not to say that there have not been experiences of pure delight in customer service, where I have reciprocated through my continued patronage and loyalty, shifting more and more of my purchases to the shop, preferring to buy from there even if it was not the core offering, but the owner still stocked them as peripheral items.

A case in point is the neighbourhood chemist shop owner in the locality where we used to stay earlier. Every visit to the shop (and remember that a visit to a chemist shop may not always be without a certain level of anxiety) was accompanied by a pleasant greeting. Even if there was stress due to an illness in the family, not that the stress would go, but the smiling acknowledgement of one’s arrival did not definitely aggravate the situation. He would ask about the well being of family members, occasionally check how work was going or discuss current happenings, depending on circumstances. Over a period of time, familiarity and comfort level increased and I found myself shifting our monthly purchases of toiletries also to this shop, since he stocked them too. If anything was out of stock at that time, he would promise to organise delivery and always stuck to his commitments. We rewarded him generously with loyalty and by increasing the basket of what we bought from him, adding toothpastes and soaps and deodorants to our list of medicines to be purchased ….. Prices were never discussed !!

We then shifted to another locality. Due to distance, obviously we could not continue to patronise this chemist shop. But still, whenever in that area, we would stop by to pick up certain things we remembered or just to say hello.

There was another chemist near our new residence. A much better laid out shop ….. much better stocked with a much wider range of products. This seemed like a great alternative !! We also became members of the ‘frequent buyer’ group and got a ‘loyalty’ card that allowed us accumulation of points which could be redeemed on subsequent purchases. They announced ‘24X7 service’ and ‘free home delivery’ on signages in and outside the shop, on the loyalty card, invoice copies, carry bags et al. This was ‘The Promised Land’, I thought to myself, very happy with my decision to have tied up with them !!

I started visiting the shop, shifting our required chemist related purchases there. One day, due to some pressing engagements, I decided to order for home delivery on the phone. After what seemed like eternity, my call was answered by a voice at the other end, telling me to hold on and that they would take my order in a short while. This was even before I could lose my cool and ask the voice at the other end, why it took them so long to pick up the phone. So I held on to my end of the line …..

To share how I felt then and how things shaped up subsequently, let me request you to hold on to your end of the line till the next issue and to try to figure out my feelings at that moment. Needless to say, you may curse me for my arrogant sounding to closure to this article ….. and I must say that that is quite close to how I felt on being told to hold on to my end of the telephone line by ‘The Land of Promises’.

To be continued …..

J.P.Singh

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Adding Value to The Selling Process

The Indian Optician, October, 2008

Packaging of a product, they say, is a silent salesman. But it ‘speaks’ louder than anything else.

So also, in today’s competitive & professional world, plain functional skills as a product offering are not enough & need packaging as well. Having functional skills is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Infact with rigorous academic curriculum & examinations, functional aspects of a subject, hopefully, (though the relevance of some of the subjects being taught is continuously debated) should be taken care of adequately. Employers feel a general lack of employability even if candidates have relevant academic qualifications & subject knowledge. Quite often ‘soft’ skills are where the gap lies, they say & most interviewers would be checking these in an interview situation.

The area of development could be plain simple communication skills, related to working English or in many cases even effective communication in a vernacular language. Body language, clarity of speech, dialoguing & listening skills are important basic elements here. At the next level, personal grooming/hygiene, planning, time management etc. are areas which should be given particular attention.

Again, ‘personal/individual’ specific areas of development are not enough. Organisations are an interplay of multiple relationships. Therefore adaptive thinking, flexibility, right behaviour/attitude & teamwork become essential for effective & productive functioning of any organisation in order to maximise results. Most courses/degrees do not handle these areas at all. Specific attention is needed to develop these very important attributes of one’s personality. Sensitivity to view points of team mates, peers, superiors and subordinates will be possible only if proper behavioural training & inputs are given or rather taken proactively by the candidates to not just sensitise themselves but to internalise these traits.

Since every organisation exists for serving the customer, one way which can help candidates to develop the above attributes, is to develop a strong customer orientation. Quite often, lip service is given to this term. However, if this is understood & ‘internalised’ well, then the need for all the areas discussed above (be it communication, grooming, listening, teamwork, behaviour etc.) will become automatically clear & one would understand their significance in organisational working. Colleagues are to be seen as internal customers & hence the concept is helpful in cross functional alignment & working as well.

Needless to say, none of these so called soft skills can be picked up a few days before appearing for an interview or be played in isolation or faked. These should be developed continuously over a period of time so that they become second nature to one’s personality ….. bootstrapped together to present an integrated whole individual, facing the challenges or rather opportunities of the world GRACEFULLY ….. !!

J.P.Singh

JPS Consulting

Just Plain & Simple                               

 ….. Helping Realise Potential  

JPS Customer Value Academy

Just Plain & Simple                               

….. Helping Create Customer Value

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