Consumer satisfaction????

Consumer Satisfaction reaches new heights in today’s world. (Yes, I’m being sarcastic)

The other day I went to a Pizza Hut, quite a reputed brand and well regarded for its customer care. I beg to disagree. To begin with, there were only two waiters for the whole diner (which has quite become the trend now for the brand). It felt a bit awkward, with an uneasy silence all over the place, customers wondering if they’ll ever make it till the pizza arrives.
Finally I have one waiter coming over to take the order. But his face reads sheer terror- there’s just so much to do. And if you take more than a minute with your order, you’ll notice his twitching and turning, and he will adorn the ‘oh-just-get-over-with-it’ look. Well so much for the customer service. All this, in spite of me being one of their loyal customers (forced-due-to-love-of-pizza-loyal).Oh, and I better not get started on their non-availability of items.
It’s true that the customer is getting more demanding in terms of service and satisfaction. At the same time he is not willing to pay a higher price for the same. And with millions of ‘me-too’ brands coming up all over the city, there is a sudden increase in the demand for qualified employable sales people. However, to cut cost, most of these are willing to do away with the ‘qualified employable’ part of the deal. Sometimes, even the floor manager can take you to whole new heights of stupidity that makes you wonder why you still come here.

Take BIG BAZAAR for an example. More like BIG fat lying bazaar. I was pretty interested (initially) in its concept of providing the best quality at the cheapest prices available. But what I see now, leaves me a little more than flabbergasted-to be modest with my words. I have never had such a terrible customer treatment anywhere. I go over to their garments section and the colors and design almost makes me puke. And the price remains similar to a Westside or a Shoppers’ Stop (except worse in quality and taste). Well getting back, I notice these three sales women ganging up and gossiping. I call on to one of them and they look at me as though they were making the new budget of India and I happened to disturb them. When I ask her, do you have this in a different color or size; she just waves her hand nonchalantly and goes back to making the budget or whatever.

So then I proceed for billing and as soon as I reach the counter, the salesman puts the board ‘counter closed’. I proceed to the next ‘counter open’ counter, however without a counter person. I ask a few salespeople around, and after a lot of inquiry I’m informed that he will be here shortly. After a long wait of five minutes, (which looked well over an hour to my short tempered mind clock), the counter person arrives all smiles. I ask him to bill it and he has the audacity to say that the counter is closed. If you know me, you’d well know what state that would put me in. I asked him, then why is the counter open sign put and why make me wait? He coolly inverts the sign and continues smiling.

I could go on and on about more such (and mind you more serious) anecdotes of BIGGGG Bazaar, but I need to check on my BP first. As long as companies want to expand their tentacles and bite into their competition, they would keep opening new showrooms, new franchises, and new outlets. And with this, would increase their search for employable staff. Non availability of such staff, lack of training the current staff and a major slack on the part of supervisors will continue to leave customer care puritans like me just high and dry!