The Hindu Business Line : Out of their depth

ALL you have to do is to talk to your friends and their spouses, and the chances are that all of them will have nasty experiences to relate about the indifference of most companies in the private sector towards customers. After deregulation and globalisation, for all the talk of customer paradise, world class, ISO and the like, there has actually been a deterioration in their work culture.

Indeed, it is getting to be gradually worse than before liberalisation. Of course, outwardly, the designations of their operatives cannot be more pompous, the showrooms glitzier, the language of voice boxes sweeter, and the ads more enticingly bombastic. There it stops. You try to get any of them to attend to any problem connected with their product or service. At every stage, you will encounter frustration and exasperation.

The call centres are of little help as the inexperienced, young persons manning them can at best lull you with the assurance to pass on the complaint to the department concerned. What then follows is the silence of the graveyard. If you ring up the office directly, you bump into a situation where, to borrow a felicitous description I heard recently, disembodied voices mock at disempowered customers! The equipment is very often badly maintained and nothing happens even if you press the various numbers as these disembodied voices ask you to.

And if, at long last, you are able to get hold of a real human being, he ever so politely promises to send someone "as soon as possible", the definition of which extends anywhere from a week to infinity. The ugliest surprise is that even a series of e-mail messages to the so-called helplines elicits no reply. In all these respects, PSUs are turning out to be a refreshing contrast.

I suspect that most private sector firms have understood that they are unable to measure up to the demands and grievances of customers. Lest their functionaries be pinned down to their obligations, they do not provide any particulars about them in their brochures or in the telephone directory.

I earnestly urge the SEBI Chairman to ensure that the companies observe the essence of the Right to Information Act in the same way government departments are required to do, so as to bring about a greater sense of accountability and service-orientation in their attitude towards the public.

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