There’s always an opportunity to delight your customers

By Mukesh GuptaCustomer Engagement

My wife uses a CDMA mobile connection by Reliance Communications. We have been a loyal customers since 2006.

The operator has been advertising about their unlimited network coverage and position it as one of their USP’s to attract new customers.

Their ad featuring bollywood actors Anushka Sharma & Rannvijay Singh showcasing their network coverage is below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPVZRmZyWv4]

Now, this is  a good thing to do if you are able to live up to the expectations you create.

The trouble is that since yesterday, my wife has not been able to make or receive any calls on her mobile phone. Today, when I contacted the service centre on CMH Road in Indira Nagar, Bangalore, the customer service representative was not interested in the complaint. He instead asked me to log a complaint at the call center. I called up the call center and they said that they are experiencing a trouble in their network and that they are working to resolving this. When I asked the call center representative about the time it might take to get the network up and running, she kept repeating that they are working on it on a priority basis. When I specifically asked if they know how long it will take to get it up, they had no answer.

Now, this is not the first time that they have had network issues.  I also understand that these things happen. Now what is more important is how these situations are handled.

A few things that Reliance could do in order to change this incident on its head and really wow their customers:

  1. Send out a personal apology letter to all their customers which explains what happened and what they plan to do to avoid such a thing happening again.
  2. As a good will gesture provide them something in return to the in-convenience caused. It could be as small as a 25% for pre-paid customers on their current balance or a 10% reduction in the bills of pre-paid customers or a gift voucher for their customers redeemable at any of their reliance retail outlets or any such thing.
  3. Identify 2 or 3 causes and let customers choose a cause which is closer to their heart and make a donation to the cause on behalf of your customer. Send them a receipt and a thank you card with their next bill.
If they do any one of the above or something else which can help them re-connect with their customers, they will not only have turned this situation to their favor, they would continue to retain most of their customers and also generate some buzz online which could only be good for their brand.
One of the keys to have a satisfied set of customers is to first deliver your commitments and then exceed the expectations of your customers.
Hope someone is listening at Reliance.

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3 thoughts on “There’s always an opportunity to delight your customers”

  1. May be good when the customer are niche, counted and the employee joyful and thoughtful.
    When idea is to close the world in the fist “karlo duniya mutthi me” its difficult to open the fist and think out of box.
    In a rat-race of 1paise to 1/2 paise sec providing customer expectation itself is a delight !

    1. Thanks for your comment. I understand that in an intensely competitive world, just about meeting customer expectations may seem the right thing to do. Thats what everyone does. So, in order to be truly successful in the market place, you need to go the extra mile to delight your customers.

      And if you truly want to delight your customers, it is always possible.

      It never costs a lot of money; neither does it take a lot of planning or thinking! Most important is that it needs to start with you deciding to be a lot more thoughtful & being creative about delighting your customers.

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