“Inconvenient
slogan”
“Always there for you” the phrase used by the Bhutan Telecom, do they
value their words or it’s just a paradox?? The market situation is so complicated
in Bhutan that for one, business don’t know how to be monopoly and when there
is more, market is just a click away from bankruptcy. What can improve the
business environment in the Bhutanese market sometimes considered to be the
smallest market in the world? Should it be quality of the product? Should it be
customer service? This article attempts to explore some ideas with regard to
the service and products of Telecommunications in Bhutan. The contents are my
personal views and do not represent any research finding.
You will be greeted with long list of services on their website but how
many of the service you know and you are using? As far as I am concern it’s not
about the long quantity of the service it’s about few quality service. How many
times you have to dial to make a single call this days?? and how many times
your computer displays unable to connect to internet when the status of the
connection is connected??? How many of you go to toilet or kitchen for a cup of
coffee while your computer is loading a website??? How many of you gets a
convincing answer on 1600?? How long it takes you to nave a broadband
connection?
Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix
things when they go wrong, it was a normal evening Friday were all the office
going look for a exciting weekend on their tired face when I visited BT counter
in centenary vegetable market sometimes around 4:30 pm to get a internet
package I was bit lucky that there were no customer rush so I got all three
counter option, so I asked for the counter 1 for an internet package, I was
asked to go to counter 2 saying he is lil busy further I was pushed to go to
next counter number three saying she don’t do internet recharge only to wait
for few minutes till she is done with her call who seems to be in her late
thirty with full of experience and perfect with the keyboards who enters the
number without looking at the keyboard not the screen, my inconvenienced mind
forced me to tell the number once again so I did. You will receive a SMS soon
said the experienced women what I suppose. Surprisingly the SMS got jammed on
its way as as it was typed 329 in place of 327. 18 hours later I called their
toll free number 1600 and asked about the error, it was not updated it will be okay
soon replied from the other end. Lastly I visited the same counter to cross
check the number and found it was recharged to another number 329 in place of
327 when she sees that she confidently said you have given me the wrong number I
was speechless for a minute later I asked if there is a possibility of
recharging back to the correct number. How can that be possible when you have
given the wrong number it’s now his/her profit said the beautiful lady, now I leave
it to the reader to judge the possible mistake of me telling my number wrongly
or her typing wrongly? I am not crying over Nu. 299/- I am just concerned
if it happens to 10 more customer it’s likely to lose 20 customer in the next
few days.
I wonder why good customer service seems to be the exception rather than
the rule. Are good employees really in such short supply? Our job market has
reached such a height that vacant job is for the rich people and those who have
supporter, by default. Unemployment rates hits its ceiling with talented and
qualified jobseeker with right education yearning at home because law covers and equals the humanity but not when you
have wealth. Today you can’t rely on the amount you have in balance
sheet nor the income statement for your sustainability. World class investor never
looks at the statements you have prepared based on the amounts.
Remember you’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can
be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied. In
the world of Internet your competitor is only one mouse click away in many cases,
bad customer service is caused by negligent or incompetent employees that
undermine the employee-customer relationship and its pursuit of short-term
growth that often drives businesses to engage in practices that end up
alienating the very people they should be treating like royalty.
