India is an economy based on services sector. However, do we really provide even basic services to consumers in our own country? In a country, where the system and service providers care little about the customer, the solution lies in self-empowerment

India is a service sector dominated economy. We are one of the few large economies in the world, which skipped the phase of large-scale industrialisation, and became a service-based economy from an agriculture-based one. More than 60% of the economy is service sector in India. We have everything that the service sector can boast of. We have insurance, banking, telecom and airlines (the service component, as we do not manufacture it). We outperformed China in becoming a hub of business process outsourcing, a component of the service sector. While we continue to grow as a service sector economy; we do not have what is required to run the service sector, i.e. spirit of service. Let us look at some examples to understand how service-focused we are.

When you buy a product or service in India, you are the king. You are pampered, you get royal treatment and for a moment, you get enamoured by the standard set by the company or service provider. So if you, fill an online form to buy an air ticket and do not complete the transaction but have entered your telephone number, you may end up getting a call from the portal, which will ask you if you had any issue, while booking the ticket.

Now, imagine that you have bought a Jet Airways ticket and you are having an issue in web check in. You call Jet Airways, the consumer care line. On more than 90% of occasions, you will get a message, which is, “We are experiencing heavy traffic volume. Your expected wait time is 15 minutes”. Is this heavy traffic or lack of adequate staff to take care of customers? An airline knows how many tickets are booked on a daily basis and the number of calls that it gets on a daily basis. The number of calls can also be well assessed by an airline in India. Can’t it plan accordingly?

This is not against a company or a sector. You trying lodging a complaint with Vodafone on their customer care line, the customer care executive will avoid giving you a complaint number, which can be used by you by for writing a mail to the nodal officer. Recently, I tried to call a number displayed on IDBI Samruddhi portal, for some queries. After dialling 40 times between 10am to 2pm, I gave up because the number was continuously engaged. I bought a cupboard from a Godrej showroom in Vashi and asked the employee over there, how much time it will take to deliver the cupboard? His response was three to four weeks. However, the work was not completed on scheduled time.

There are several such experiences, which I am sure most of us have.  This reflects poorly on our service sector. The service sector focuses on sales with little attention on after sales service. Everybody wants to pay attention to where the money is made. After all, post-sales service is not a money spinner. Also in many cases sales and after sales service providers are two different entities. This is in contradiction to what you see in many other countries across the world, especially the advanced economy. In India, we say that the consumer is the king, but he is at the receiving end when it comes to delivering services.

Why does this happen? There are many reasons. The legal system is heavily skewed against the consumer. Today, if you have to file a complaint against a bank, you may have to run from pillar to the post. Banking ombudsman does exist but the focus of the system is in reducing the number of cases pending with it, rather than anything else. The ombudsman will never go out of the way to help you. There are consumer courts. You can approach them also. But it requires resource, like time and some money. Most of us do not have the first one and hence, end up ignoring the issue that we face. This is where the consumer apathy comes into picture. We do not even want to write an email and expect others to solve our problem. Moneylife receives many such queries where consumers expect Moneylife to fight on their behalf.
 

Recently I wrote an email to Air India on the problem displayed on their website regarding missing miles. The facility is not available for months but the website has the standard message, which says it is not available temporarily.

I have received a reply from them, but if I find that the issue is not resolved, RTI could be the next action from my side.

However, where is the solution? It is time to fight for what is our right. A consumer forum or an association can only provide help in a limited way. Every consumer needs to be an activist to ensure that he raises service deficiency issues. In a country, where the system and service providers little care about the customer, the solution lies in empowerment of self. 

(Vivek Sharma has worked for 17 years in the stock market, debt market and banking. He is a post-graduate in Economics and MBA in Finance. He writes on personal finance and economics and is invited as an expert on personal finance shows.)