Importance Of Customer Service

Good customer service is extremely vital for an organization that deals with consumer products. When a consumer buys a product, he/she is shelling out his/her hard earned money for it. Typically a consumer would want value for the money spent on the product which includes quality, reliability and durability of the product. The above mentioned factors cannot be altered once the product is bought by the consumer. Customer service is the only connection between the organization and the consumer after the product has been sold.

For an organization or a company that values its customers and wants to maintain a good relationship with its customer, a good customer service is extremely essential.  A product cannot be assured 100% quality, since quality of the product varies with the type of usage. For example, if a person buys a car the performance of the car may differ from the performance of the same car bought by some other person since there driving styles could be different. Therefore, keeping in touch with the customer is good for the organization to continuously improve their product and also leaves a lasting impression on the consumer.

Here is a classic example of bad customer service. I recently bought an airtel digital set top box (direct to home cable connection). The customer service guys kept calling and literally pressurizing me to buy the set top box. I must say they sold it in very nice way. They tempted me to buy it, and finally I gave in and bought the product. The airtel technicians (some franchise guys) came over, fixed the set box, erected the antennae and left. Initially, I was pretty impressed with their service, but they proved me wrong.  After a month, my balance ran out and I completely forgot to recharge my account even after many reminders given by the customer service (they are prompt when It comes to money!!)  I finally found time to recharge it and I recharged it using my registered mobile number. Generally the account gets activated as soon as I recharge it (that used to happen with my Tata sky connection). But, my account never got activated. I called the customer care and I recited my story. They in turn registered a complaint and gave me a complaint ID. They said that the issue would be solved immediately, so I waited. I called them about 4 hours later and I found that my money had gone to some other account. They acknowledged that the problem was from their corner and they will fix as soon as possible. Two days went by and my cable connection was still deactivated. I was pretty upset and I called the customer service again and gave them a piece of my mind. But I was treated with absolute disregard and I got feeling that nobody really cared! End of the day, I was left with a big headache and I was seething in anger! Form a consumer’s point of view an efficient customer support is extremely essential.  In the above example, the consumer has seen both sides of the coin. Good service, during purchase and bad service after purchase. For an organization to increase its customer base, customer service customer support is vital.

Organizations must understand that the consumer has believed in the product and has spent his money on it. Therefore, the company should feel indebted to the consumer and make him feel like a king. If ten consumers are happy with a product, each of those 10 consumers will spread the word about the product to ten other people, thereby increasing customer base exponentially. The problem is that I a country like India, where the population is huge and the companies do not really care if they lose out on customers, as there are always a fresh bunch of consumers with a lot of money waiting to buy their product. The only way to curb such type of monopoly is to create awareness amongst the consumers and create a common ground for consumers to air their opinions and views.  Due to cut throat competitions nowadays, all the companies have a strong customer support team. But, unfortunately these organizations use the customer care platform as a marketing vehicle to increase their sales, so again the consumer is on the losing side. These corporate giants really do not bother about the consumers. They are just worried about sales, promotion and marketing and most of the time they end up laughing all the way to the bank!

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