We have been mentioning that the
moment of truth is the point where a brand is made or broken. This is where
either a satisfied customer glorifies the product/service or an unhappy customer
dismisses it. We know for a fact that most of the time the customer is left
dissatisfied. We lay the onus on the service provider and complain that service
levels have to improve – and then there’s lethargy. But then there is the
Indian consumer who is so used to poor service that she is almost immune to it!
In the comparison between expectation and delivery, we can see that since the
expectations are so low, it’s no surprise that delivery levels are so poor.
This could probably be attributed
to years and years of poor service, long queues and red tape that has adversely
conditioned the Indian consumer psyche. It is sometimes due to this mindset,
that when something out of the ordinary is provided, the Indian customer is
overawed. For example, an Indian consumer is easily thrilled when a DTH service
provider promises service in 24 hours and it actually happens! But isn't this
what the company has always promised?
So let’s sum it up. It would seem
that as an ecosystem we are already meeting expectations and with the considerably
low levels these expectations are surviving at, we are headed towards an era of
customer indifference. Or we quite possibly are already there. Practitioners
have been talking about great customer service for years now but service
providers continue to ignore the calls, yet they preach about the Zappos of the
world without ever intending to change a single process internally. Customer
indifference could soon lead to a drying up of differentiators or marketing
‘hooks’. We would then go back to a market that differentiates on factors like
price and product design that we know are unsustainable.
Looks like soon, that DTH
customer we spoke about is going to become an exception to a rule no one cares
for.
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