Why are we being taken for granted?

“The measure of a man’s greatness is not the number of servants he has, but the number of people he serves.” – John Hagee

I have come across some outstanding examples in marketing of services. The staff of the Disney World are called ‘The Casts’ and they dedicate themselves towards giving a great experience to their clients. A story is often told about a worker in Honda who had gone out with his family for dinner. He saw a Honda car on the road with a breakdown. Oblivious of his family, this worker got down to repair the car. Nordstrom, a US retailer got car tyres back from an irate customer. The beauty was, Nordstrom never sold car tyres. Magazines, books and articles are replete with these examples.

But my experiences are to the contrary.

In this blog I will share with you personal examples where I observed despicable service.

LET”S PLAY A GAME. I will give you clues but not mention the name of the brands. Let’s see who are the ones who guess the names correctly.

‘IIT Coaching – serves the society for a thousand years’

Last year I made a visit to this ‘haloed’ institution with my parents. We waited and waited to pay homage to the counsellor. The diva unceremoniously turned her back to us stating that I did not qualify to enter the precincts of this institution.

Moral of the story: A mediocre student like me should never dream of getting coached for IIT entrance. So dear friends start fidgeting.

‘Oppa Gangnam Style!’

On May 26^th 2016, we met with an accident near Hosur while going to Chennai. Our car was towed to the Hosur service centre. It was a frontal collision and though we were wearing seatbelts, the airbags refused to work. We were informed by experts that we did not collide properly. As a result, we missed the airbags sensors by a centimetre. Our car was in the service centre for ten days. As there was no action taken by the car authorities we decided to tow the car back to Trichy. To our shock and dismay we found that some of the parts in the car had been dismantled. The Hosur authorities had not submitted the service manual book and keys back to us. My father requested them many times but it has fallen in deaf ears. We even registered a complaint in the company website and sent a mail to the regional manager. But, why should they care? I remember how we were treated as kings when we went to buy the car. Auto journal says that this is the best car in India on all parameters. If this is the treatment customers are meted out with for the best car in India. Then what would be the plight of the customers buying the other models.

Moral of the story:

1. Always be very alert and see to it that your car collides exactly at the point where the sensor switch is located.
2. Take videos of the interior of your automobile, so that the components are intact.
3. Never complain in the website or send mails. They are too busy serving other people.

 

‘Let me take you far away, you’ll like a holiday’

This was a hilarious incident. On 27^th May, we reached the hotel at 11.30 pm. It is located inside the sprawling campus of Mahindra Tech city, Chennai. We were famished and ordered for burgers and hot chocolates at 12 in the night. As normal Indians we waited patiently. We got a call at 12.30 am saying that there was no burger. It took them half an hour to find out that there was no bun in stock. We then ordered for sandwich and waited patiently as all Indians do. The food arrived at 1 am. Alas! The hot chocolate was made out of burnt milk. We left it untouched and went to sleep. At 3 am our phone rang. As we were in deep slumber, we let it ring the second time. Finally, my mother picked up the phone. A person at the other end asked “Can I bring the hot chocolate drink madam?”

Moral of the story: Never order for hot chocolates, especially after midnight.

‘India China Bhai Bhai!’

The display of my laptop did not show because of a crack. I gave it to the local dealer expecting a free replacement as the laptop was in its warranty period. The dealer asked me to pay up as it was my fault and I agreed. He asked me to come after three days and when I called him on the fourth day, he asked for a two day extension. As a true Indian, I agreed. Whenever I called them up he would never pick up the phone. He must have been very busy servicing other people. Finally, I went to the dealer’s showroom. My poor laptop was lying untouched. I phoned up the service centre, pressed innumerable buttons to finally talk to an uninterested voice that did not seem to care. I then went to the service centre physically. In India we have a culture of making people wait. I waited for half an hour as if I was waiting to get an appointment with the doctor. Finally, a man came and said “Oh! Sorry madam, we don’t service laptops. Only tablets and phones are serviced here.” I became furious and walked out of the service centre slamming the door. Later, I went to a local non-authorised shop. It took them only ten minutes to repair my laptop. I was thrilled and asked the person “What have you studied?” He said “I studied till tenth and learnt all this through experience.” I was flabbergasted.

Moral of the story: Never take your laptop authorised dealers or company service centres. Take them to non-authorised dealers. They are more professional.

“The best way to find youserlf is to lose yourself in the serving of others.”- Mahatma Gandhi

I think these great companies do not want to take the risk of losing themselves. Volkswagen paid billions of dollars for faking the emission test. What would have been the plight of these companies if they had offered the same services in the USA? Why do they do it in India? Why are we being taken for granted?

Please also share your ‘appalling’ experiences.

ISRO; The pride of India

My apologies to my well wishers for posting a blog after long time. In the meanwhile, I have written a book about my experiences during my one year break from school and back with a new resolve. I promise that I shall post a blog every week. Last Friday was a Red Letter Day in my life. Thanks to CII and YI (Young Indians), I got permission to visit inside ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. We were a group of 35 and as usual, I was the only kid in the team.

We gathered at the conference hall inside ISRO and were addressed to by the Director-in-charge. There was a slide presentation about PSLV, GSLV MK-3. These rockets and the fuel propellants are manufactured, integrated and tested here and then shifted to Sriharikota for launch. ISRO, Bengaluru makes the satellites.

I asked the director “Why different fuel propellants are used in the three stages of the rocket? Solid propellant in the first stage, liquid propellant in the second stage and cryogenic in the third stage.” I was humbled that a man of such stature answered my question in detail. He said that the solid propellant provides huge thrust in stage zero. When the fuel gets exhausted then the rocket is ejected. The lighter rocket can be run by liquid propellant. Then the next stage is ejected. The last stage of the rocket is extremely light and needs precision handling. This is where the high quality and highly expensive, cryogenic fuel is used.

One thought gave me goose pimples. Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam used to address the scientist in the very same hall. The campus here is sprawling and nearly 6000 acres in size. The security here is intense.

I was wondering why Mahendragiri was chosen by ISRO. A chief scientist gave two explanations:

1. The topography is flat which assists in rocket construction.
2. This place is near the Palakkad funnel. During monsoons, the winds would reach the speeds of 120 km/h and blow away any fire caused by the highly inflammable liquid hydrogen. Thus, protecting the place.

I chanced upon hundreds and hundreds of windmills in this area. There is a museum inside the campus, where I spotted exhibits of satellites, rockets and cross-section of rockets. I also glimpsed upon portraits of Dr. Homi Baba and Dr. Vikram Sarabai, the visionaries who made ISRO happen.

Next we proceeded to the testing site where the rockets are tested for endurance. There is a place inside where liquid nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen are manufactured and tested on cryogenic engines. From there we went to the control room. This was an amazing experience. It was exactly like what I have seen on the TV and in movies. I saw PLCs and monitors over there. The PLCs are programmed to open and close the circuits based on the information received from the traducers. This whole operation is automated but human intervention is sometime necessary.

Next, we actually saw the rocket engine being integrated. Liquid hydrogen (propellant) would be passed through one nozzle and liquid oxygen (oxidiser) through the other and combustion would take place at the top of the engine chamber. This heat would be passed through a nozzle at tremendous velocity. Now Newton’s 3rd law would come into action and the reaction was the huge up thrust. Finally, we were escorted to the place where the first and second stage of the rocket would be attached to the liquid propellant tanks. The casing for the rockets is aluminium, a very light metal.

Finally it was time to bid goodbye. The authorities explained the vendor application process in detail.

I’m used to taking many selfies, but, here I could not use my smart phone the entire day, as it was taken by the security at the entrance. I found it extremely odd to be without the cell phone for seven hours.

Snippets

1. The rockets reach a height of only 200 kms. From here the satellite is gently guided by the booster to the height of 36,000 kms. This is possible because the influence of the gravitational field greatly diminishes after 200 kms.
2. The weight of the rocket is 300 tonnes (300,000 kgs) and the satellite is 1000 kgs, that is a ratio of 300 : 1. 300 efforts has to be put in to get one success. This proves that there is no shortcut to success.
3. Every morning the satellites orbit has to be tracked. Within 24 hours, the satellite dips from its orbit because of gravity. The fuel in the boosters attached to the satellite gently guides it back to the orbit. This has to be done every day. The satellite will live as long as there is fuel in the booster. Once the fuel gets over the satellite will come back to the earth atmosphere and get burnt.

ISRO is the pride of India. We had The Chandrayan expedition, The Mangalyan (the only country to succeed in its first travel attempt to mars) expedition and The Aditya mission to the sun. Our engineers have the capability of launching 20 missiles in one go. We have also developed our own indigenous missile technology. We have even developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) called Tegas. Then what stops us from developing our own automobiles, high tech smartphones, our social media sites or even personal care products?