Innovative marketing or cheating?

Marketing requires all corner thinking. Consumer consequences are one of the vital thoughts each marketing executive should think before venturing into the field. Due to the undue target pressures, marketing personnel adopt hook or crook methods to achieve their sales. Despite consumer courts and non stop awareness creations by the government agencies and NGOs, duping of consumers continue unabated.

The cell phone companies are case in point. With the greed to capitalize the wide open Indian market, cell phone companies pumped in huge scale of money. Reliance was one of the first companies to enter the field. They gave life-long validity with handsets and talk time. Its popularity grew at an amazing pace. There was a tough competition for dealership. Virtually competition existed to Reliance monopoly in the late nineties. Then Bharati, Essar, Tatas and others came into the field. With the antagonistic communications minister Dayanidhi Maran at the helm of affairs, Reliance found the going tough since 2004.

Till 2004 Reliance used all official connections and strengthened its monopolistic practices. Government, agents and customers were cheated alike. Across the board cheating was common among those who connected with Reliance. For diverting ISD calls as local calls, Reliance created a loss of Rs.500 crores to the Government. Hand in glove with telecommunications authorities Reliance was carrying on with this malpractice for long time till it was exposed in 2005. After failing all compromise formulas and under hand negotiations, Reliance paid Rs.150 crores fine to the communications ministry.

For instance if you dial a number then the call rating starts before the other end picks up the phone. Even if you speak for 59 seconds the phone will take you to 1 minute 1 second. There was no accountability in Reliance. Initially they said SMS is free and local call charges Rs.2 only. Now they are saying that SMS is one rupee and local call charge is fifty paisa. Why this bogus advertisement? Now most of the customers are used to SMSes. By advertising low call rates they can retain the existing customers or expand their customer base. In the final sum, the company is growing and customers are feeling the heat.

The sky high popularity of Reliance crashed down suddenly. Airtel topped the list with the quick and reasonable services. Till it defeated Reliance monopoly, Airtel was sincere. Now they also started cheating their customers. Caller tunes, voice SMS, MMS, selling data bases of the customers and other methods are used to stay in business. Thankfully TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) is up on heals to keep tab of these offenders. Without regulation tele customers will be pushed to the brink of financial collapse.
This is not the case alone with the telecom companies. Aviation sector, gas agencies, education, milk vendors, cable operators, any and every service provider adopts innovative cheating in the name of marketing. In all these methods the marketing executives and company heads forget one basic formula – cheating the customers will ruin the company in the long run. Already the consumer awareness and accumulated frustrations are strangulating companies. Before it gets too late they should get their act right. Tell the truth and convince the customer. They will be willing to support you rather than getting cheated. One customer said “Cheat me straight. Don’t waste your and my time by taking me for a long ride”. Such a frustration is bred among the consumers by marketing executives to make their living.

Customer No Care

Invariably every company has got a customer care cell. 24x7 one-stop solutions are promised by them. These are basically computer –telecommunications linked systems which are supposed to solve the customer problems immediately. To increase the work efficiency and output generation, latest technologies are used. In the first step towards better management, customer care is insisted.

But practically there is a least care for customer’s complaints and suggestions. In sheer desperation to market products customer care is assured through wide advertisements. When the time comes for problems with products, consumer feels the heat. Cell phones, cable connections, Internet, and other electronic product related issues warrant immediate solutions.

As a free market lobbyist Nitisha (23) was loud mouthing about the best returns offered by the private sector for the customers. She always earned happiness in downgrading public sector companies. To score brownie points in casual debates she poured her heart and vehemently argued for the cause of private sector. Her boss a hard votary of liberal economy recruited her and paid peanut salary. She was assured of better pay after few months. Unfortunately months and years passed, she only worked harder and gave better results. No sign of boss talking about increment in her salary. Meanwhile she has to buy a phone. Naturally the multi national Nokia was her choice. With in days, Nokia phone started creating trouble.

She called the customer care for 20 continuous days. Most of the time she was put on hold or transferred to someone who cannot understand her problem. Frustrated with this problem she went straight to the service centre. There was a huge rush. Amidst burning summer heat the big crowd in the service centre increased her frustration. On top of it there was no air-conditioning. Not even water was served. After three hours her turn came and the executive in the desk rudely told her that it is not place where she can bring small issues. Anger soared to top of her brain and she lambasted him. Few heated exchanges wasted her precious time.

Coming back home she found her Internet not working. A call to the customer care centre was not possible due to the continous engagement of the given number. After 4 hours she got through the line and the executive was not able to communicate properly. Leave alone understanding her problem.

Not only Nitisha experiences these kinds’ of customer unfriendly behaviours, millions of people face such problems. Despite consumer cells and courts these problems persist. One of the prime reasons for pouring complaints against costumer care units is adhoc solutions stitched by private companies. Public Sector companies are known for casual customer attitudes because of the people working in it don’t have private stakes. With the increasing competition from private sector, Government companies are also forced to pull up their socks.

In the end one can sense that the present customer care centres are totally inadequate and ill-equipped to handle the problems. One, the scale of the problem and number of customers pouring is above the limit of the employees. Two, companies recruit without adequate training for customer care. Three, low salary and high level exploitation brings most crude work force. Four, top level management is not seriously monitoring the performance of the team. Five all solutions are provided to solve the crisis for the time.

Whether private or public companies should improve their services. Otherwise business will not improve. Consumer courts should take tough measures to punish the defaulters and deliver justice to the common people. Not only technology companies are creating problems, almost all service providers test the patience level of the costumers. Education providers and health services are the next worst areas. A timely support is required to pull out the problem facing consumers.