IndiaRetailBiz

In a recent article in the Business Standard, Arvind Singhal, Chairman, KSA Technopak, a leading retailing consultancy, has described his experiences on how businesses run by even enlightened managements treat their customers as “unwanted” and “unwelcome.”

Juxtapose this with the experience of a Delhi-based blogger Aditya Chaturvedi who, referring to our recent post, has described his experience of buying a piece of furniture from a newly launched, new format, megastore in the National Capital Region. Even if partially true, we hope, this is only an isolated incident at the store. We must clarify here, however, that the incident has not been chosen to denigrate a particular brand, or a retailer, but to point out to the malaise that affects the entire sector.

Although, all of us are aware of the scorching pace at which the sector is growing as well of the acute shortage of trained personnel at all levels, we reproduce excerpts below hoping that this weekend they will provide food for thought to all those concerned with well being of the retailing sector.

Excerps from Arvind Singhal’s article:

In the last few weeks, I have encountered diverse experiences…which have led me to …believe that many consumer product and services businesses are now doing so well that they now think of their customers as “unwanted, unwelcome” intrusions into their comfort zones!

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit …a new generation of shopping malls in India. However, it seems that almost every mall developer only carries the worst practices of the previous malls…. confusing overall layout, and generally rude and ignorant mall security staff … were the highlights of this shopping plaza, touted as “great” by its builders!

Within the mall, two of its anchors—both belonging to two of the largest and most experienced retail businesses in India—continued with their “best practice” belief that all customers are potential thieves and hence they have to deposit all shopping and personal bags…

Anyone who now has a reason to travel within India and look for a decent hotel room will testify that despite paying up to Rs 25,000 per night for an ordinary room…the attitude of the staff…at the desk is that they have done a favour to the poor sod by even giving him a room!

All these instances are even more ironic, considering that many of the CEOs of these businesses…routinely pick up national and international awards as visionaries, and some have already made it to the Forbes list of 36 Indian billionaires.

Alas, how much more comfortable life would be for these luminaries if only there were no customers to worry about!

Excerpts from Aditya Chaturvedi’s Blog:

I got a chance of being amongst the first few customers of ‘Home Town’. Our story starts from the day we went to ‘The Great Indian Place’, on 7th of April (Saturday), the day when ‘Home Town’ was inaugurated. The first impression was really good. It is a huge show room that caters every possible requirement for making/dressing-up a house.

…overall were impressed by the showroom and gave it 9 on 10 for the size, display, so many options for customers. The only point that pinched us a little was the unavailability of staff and lack of awareness amongst them e.g. instead of someone from the staff coming to us, we literally had to catch hold of people to get the specifications and most of the staff didn’t have proper information about the products and gave wrong or no specifications. We felt that it was probably due to the first day.

…At the time of booking we were explicitly told that the items would be delivered at our doorstep (from the warehouse) and an assembler would come along with the final receipt for products. Also, before coming, they’d give a confirmation call so that we can plan accordingly…

…When I explained the story from day before, the executive said that he’ll look into it and call me back. There was no call till afternoon. Every time I called up, some body said - ‘I will call you back, Sir’. I called them atleast 4-5 times, nothing happened and I was given the same answer. By evening, I knew almost all the customer care executives by their name - Nitesh, Deepak, Varun, Vinay! Finally, when I’d had enough, I talked to their Head. He asked me to calm down and assured me that the assembler will reach by 8:00pm…

…The Assembler reached home at around 8:30pm. He opened the boxes and there was only bed inside, NO shoe racks!!! It was the limit…It was already enough for me, I just asked for my money back as I did not want the shoe racks anymore!!!

…They are young, less experienced and to top it all, after their training, all the processes were changed. All in all, the customer service at …is a Total Failure!!!