If you have read my post World Best practices and the Asian Academic Institution, you will know that I'm a strong believer in the rights of a consumer whether it is in academia or otherwise. Unfortunately, here in Asia, us consumers don't seem to know our rights when it comes to purchasing goods and services. This lack of knowledge is either ignorance or naivete on our part, as Asians, as we think it is impolite to demand the service we deserve for the hard earned money we pay our service providers. As a result, the service providers have gotten into the bad habit of providing poor customer service all day everyday as their standard policy. Sadly, this is as true for multinational conglomerates and academic institutions as it is for street corner convenience stores.
"You are too demanding..." some say to me trying to justify why a service provider hasn't provided me the customer service I demand. Maybe this is true as I have been influenced by the West in recession where a customer lost equals to a pay-cut, a smaller bonus or someone loosing his/her job; Or maybe it is because I used to work for and later with a managing director (Mr. Ranjiv Bhalla) who truly believed in providing Beyond World Class (BWC) customer service. In his book, a customer who has paid hard earned money deserves on-time delivery of the goods and services he/she has purchased to his/her satisfaction. If not he/she deserves an apology followed by the timely rectification of the problem to his/her satisfaction. This fundamental ideology practiced in the West is what we Asians lack as there is a great shortage of good alternative service providers and an even greater shortage of consumer rights watchdogs.
Here's an example of the plight of an Asian consumer. Being a techi who likes gadgets, I recently purchased a new TV which is the largest (bigass) and the coolest I have ever owned with all the features on offer in the market (I'll do a review of it in a later post). I went to a very reputable seller here in Malaysia, paid for the TV in full and agreed on a mutually convenient delivery time. Unfortunately, the delivery time was at 2-3pm on a weekday and I had to apply for leave off of work to receive my item. Knowing how Asia works, I made sure I called the sales person at 2pm to confirm the delivery. The sales person promised to call me back in five minutes and as usual didn't bother (surprise surprise...). So I called back at 3pm in a much firmer tone and the sales person has the nerve (or the incompetence) to tell me that my item is not going to be delivered today; and as usual, there was no apology or reason for this tardiness. It was just the way they rolled. As a consumer who knows his rights, I made a few phone calls to the bosses and the bosses of bosses whom these people report and made sure that my item was delivered to me by 4.30pm (trust me when I say that it was a great victory to get it delivered on the day let alone in one and a half hours). I also made sure that they apologised for the inconvenience caused. Cutting a long story short, what I'm trying to say is that every service provider can learn a thing or two from many of the pizza delivery companies who will apologise for late delivery and compensate by giving you a free pizza. Obviously I'm not implying that stuff should be given away for free just because the service is poor. However, I strongly believe that the consumer has the RIGHT to an apology and the rectification of the problem to his/her satisfaction.
Maybe I'm an idealist but I truly think we need more Managers and CEOs who truly GET the rights of a paying consumer; Or maybe academic institutions should take serious note of this problem when designing their curricula; Or maybe I need to water down my expectations as a consumer in Asia and let these sales people scam me into paying my hard earned money for incompetent and unacceptable customer service; Or maybe us Asians need to be educated about our RIGHTS as consumers!
