My water purifier suddenly stopped working. My wife immediately called up the customer service of Eureka Forbes and they arranged the service engineer within 2 hours. My machine was back and running within another hour. That’s customer service.
Eureka Forbes is famous for providing great customer service and I have never changed my brand for several years for this precise reason. They made me “wow” once again.
Not for a moment, they said that they are filled with customer requests so there might be a delay. The crisis was not an excuse for them but an opportunity to “wow” the customer many times over.
This is an example of how a company ensures to keep a customer on board for a lifetime.
So what are the important traits of great customer service?
1. Communication Skills
2. Customer Empathy
3. Owning up to a problem
4. Problem Solving Skills
5. Time Management
6. Patience
Most importantly the customer has to be happy.
What has been your experience related to great customer service? What traits you think are an absolute necessity to excel in great customer service?
We have these annual cricket matches and tournaments in our company and for the last few years, the constant in all such tournaments have been the “Player of the Series” – Avik. Invariably he will end up being the best player if not the best batsman/best bowler. Even in the recent corporate tournament, he was the go-to man of the team.
Undoubtedly he is a very good player but we have other good players as well. How is he so consistent, especially in a corporate set up? Is there some distinct difference between him and others?
This brings me to the topic of “Fighting Hypothesis”. Avik is a leftie. He bats and bowls left-handed. Only 11% of the population in the world is left-handed and hence left-handed people in direct one-one combat are more prepared against right-handed people. For example, as a leftie, you will practise against right-handers most of the time but a rightie won’t have that option because he will mostly practise against right-handers. This makes left-handed people in direct sports have a distinct advantage. The advantage is most visible in combat sports as well as one to one sports like Tennis. It’s also visible in cricket.
What do you think? Do left-handers have a distinct advantage against right-handers?
Quite a few years back, I was introduced to a person when I wanted to purchase a new LIC policy.
That lead to a long term relationship and he became my sole agent related to mutual funds as well as medical insurance.
When we started the company and as we got some free-flowing cash we decided to park some of our funds in Liquid and Balanced Mutual Funds.
Quite naturally I turned to him again. As it turned out he was an expert in individual account handling but didn’t have much knowledge in corporate accounts. What this meant was that we didn’t get the personalised support that we were expecting from him.
In the meanwhile around 2014, I was introduced by my neighbour with another person who was also into similar nature of business. I was attached with the earlier person and I didn’t change my agent but this new person used to meet me and give me tips on financial matters and more so about corporate treasury related strategies.
The earlier person’s support kept dwindling day by day and he in fact stopped visiting us regularly because he was unable to solve a lot of our corporate issues. I decided to get a LIC policy done through this new contact for my wife and she started investing in Mutual Funds too through him. Within a month or so I could realise the difference in how he was helping us with crystal clear information.
I think proposed his name to my board of directors to have him as our agent for Mutual Fund Transactions. Little by little over the next one year he took over. He helped us tremendously during any crisis situation. Never forgot to return a call and always made it a point to visit us at least once in a month. His customer service was exemplary and it was profound during the DHFL crisis, YesBank crisis, and also in between the Pandemic of Covid-19.
Now he has made sure that we can transact everything online without any external help.
This is what defines great customer service. Understanding the client’s problem and solving it anyhow and keeping in touch with the customer at all times. By having such traits you build a relationship for life.
Thoughts?
“Why Papa?, my 5-year-old daughter asked when I asked her to stop watching TV. This was not the only time she added a “Why” to any statement because I hear “Why” multiple times throughout the day. And till she gets an answer to her satisfaction, ”Why” keeps repeating in a loop. I get exasperated by answering but she doesn’t.
Generally, as we grow up the questions vanish and one of the reasons could be our education system where you get a pat on your back if you “answer” a question correctly but you rarely get lauded for asking a pertinent question.
Have you noticed that in a corporate setup, it’s mostly “What” or “How”? Does “Why” come to your notice? It doesn’t because once again it is related to the culture where we were brought up with the mindset of “What” to do and “How” to do it. We don’t ask “Why” to do it!
I think the path to greatness lies in “Why”. When people ask “Why” it will lead to the right answers for “How” & “What” – which will then lead you towards greatness.
Do you believe in building an organisation where asking “Why” is encouraged or do you prefer the “What” & “How” question? Does your system encourage people to ask questions?
If the answer is YES then “Why”?
If the answer is NO then “Why”?
Just a couple of days back, India celebrated 74th Independence Day.
Politically we have been independent for so many years but are we financially independent? I am no economist and I really can’t get into the complete details of how India can become a more economically thriving nation. But here I wish to discuss how we can individually become financially independent.
As a youngster, one needs to understand the magic of compounding. Unfortunately, our schools do not teach us about Financial Management so many years are lost before people actually understand the importance of Savings & Investments. The time period is very important for your money to grow and hence the earlier you start investing it’s better for you.
So what is the ideal way or plan to get yourself financially independent?
Independence means that you are in your control when it comes to doing any stuff and you are not dependent on anyone to fulfill your needs.
Let’s start with an example. Let’s assume that you are earning Rs. 30,000 Per Month NET Salary.
Monthly Salary: Rs. 30,000
Yearly Salary: Rs. 3,60,000
First, divide this money into 2 parts.
Part 1: 20%
So that is Rs. 72,000 per year. This is what you should save/invest for the year.
Out of this:
Part One: 5% of your total salary which is Rs. 18,000 per year should go towards insurance premiums. Please note what’s important to note here is that never to fall into the trap of Endowment Policies or ULIPs. Your first target should be to get a “Term” Policy. Ideally the SUM ASSURED should be 10 Times of your yearly salary.
Once you have taken care of your Term Policy, think of a Health Insurance. Looking at current healthcare costs, one should have a Mediclaim of at least Rs. 10 Lakhs.
After paying these 2 premiums, calculate if you have any balance from the kitty of Rs. 18,000. If there is balance then start a Recurring Deposit (RD) with your bank.
Part Two: 5% of your total salary which is Rs. 18,000 per year. This should be invested in Secured Products like PPF (Public Provident Fund), NPF (National Pension Fund), FD (Fixed Deposits), Debt Mutual Funds (Liquid Funds). Ideally, over a period of time, your Liquid Fund should hold 9-12 Months of your expenses which you can call your Personal Emergency Fund.
Part Three: 10% of your total salary which is Rs. 36,000 per year. This should be invested in Equity. If you are interested to invest in Gold or Property then it should come from this portion of your money. So ideally start with a basket of 3 Mutual Funds which can be like below:
Large Cap
Mid Cap
Small Cap/Diversified
You can start with a SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) of Rs. 1,000 per month, in each fund under the above 3 categories.
Part 2: 80%
After taking care of your savings and investments you should think of the expenses. Now that 20% of your earnings have been saved or invested, you can plan up your expenses with the balance of 80%.
Ideally, this should also be broken up into 2 parts.
Part One: 30% of your salary which is Rs. 9000 per month. This is the maximum amount that you should spend on servicing any debt. That means the maximum amount that you should pay as an EMI or Credit Card Bill.
Part Two: 50% of your salary which is Rs. 18,000 per month. You need to plan all your monthly expenses within this amount.
It’s always difficult to start but when you make a plan and execute this as a habit, you will get used to it.
Now let’s extrapolate the above example with a hypothesis of a 10% raise every year for the next 15 years. How much will be your savings after 15 years?
The answer is – You will be having a kitty of more than Rs. 40 Lakhs at the end of 15 years.
This is a very conservative figure because there could be many years where your raise would be more than 10% and if you have the discipline to increase your savings/investments amounts equally as per your raise – this kitty would be far bigger. This is the magic of compounding.
Generally, the problem is to be consistently following the above rules. Our need change into desires and then we end up taking debts to fulfill those desires and very soon we fall under the debt trap. Once an individual falls in the debt trap it can take years for that person to get back to normalcy and by that time stress adds up which takes a toll on his health. When you fall into a debt trap, it’s very difficult to come back and become debt free because you never know if there is a disruption hiding round the corner.
Think of the current situation of Covid-19. People who saved money for years are leading a comfortable life (financially) even under this downturn but people who were not disciplined in savings could be seen blaming their luck.
I have learned all this the hard way and I hope some young people will read my blog post and get inspired and follow a discipline of savings & investment to have a financially secured future.
Once you are financially disciplined – You will become financially independent.
Please feel free to add any points that you deem fit or if I have missed anything.
Cheers to your Financial Independence!
The process that was initiated by Sourav Ganguly yielded results under MS Dhoni.
If Ganguly made the Indian team believe that we can win under tough circumstances in foreign grounds – MSD made winning a habit in tough circumstances. India became a consistently good chasing team under MS Dhoni. His calmness under pressure got instilled in the team too.
The only captain in World cricket to be the holder of 3 ICC trophies – a nonchalant leader – a man of very few words – MS Dhoni retired from International Cricket yesterday.
The man who made running between the wickets so easy ironically lost his wicket albeit run-out in his last international innings (The world cup semifinal against New Zealand where a rocket throw from Martin Guptill got MSD out by a fraction of a margin).
India was World No. 1 in both Tests and ODIs under him and it speaks a lot about the consistency that the man brought in this team.
There are many incidents of great importance where he played a crucial role in his career – never to forget the World Cup-winning shot – and a few of them are:
1. The double hundred that he scored against Australia. From an OK type score, India was able to score a daunting total due to the 9th Wicket Partnership between him and Bhuvaneswar Kumar of 140 runs. India won the match and re-established themselves as World Number 1 in Test Cricket.
2. The final over win against SriLanka at Port of Spain. India needed 15 to win in the last over with one wicket in hand. He won it for India single-handedly.
3. The Champion’s Trophy final against England – Everybody outside the ground thought that giving that over to Ishant Sharma was a mistake – England was going great guns – but as it turned out, Ishant took out both the set batsmen and from there India won a match from the claws of defeat.
4. Taking the gloves off as Hardik Pandya came into bowl against Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup. Bangladesh needed 1 to tie and 2 to win. The batsman missed and MSD after collecting the ball, didn’t throw down the stumps, and instead ran towards the stumps and broke them before the batman could make the ground.
5. Giving Joginder Sharma the last over in the T20 World Cup final – when logic said Harbhajan should be given. Rest as they say is history.
There are countless such incidents across his career.
A wicket-keeper (one of the finest – records speak for itself), a terrific batsman, and an added cherry – a great captain.
As a wicket-keeper, he holds the world record of 123 Stumpings. No other wicket-keeper has 100 stumpings under his name.
As a leader, he always believed that one should follow the process and enjoy the game – results will follow. He started the process of handing over the trophy to the youngest team member right after receiving it and that process has continued under Virat Kohli.
Some examples of his style of leadership:
1. Handing over the captainship duties to Sourav Ganguly in the last hour of Ganguly’s farewell test match.
2. Came in ahead of Yuvraj Singh in the 2011 World Cup final.
3. Right after the winning sixer in the 2011 World Cup final, made it a Sachin Tendulkar event thereafter.
4. Got the best out of Rohit Sharma by promoting him as an opener in ODIs.
5. Retired from Test Cricket to elongate his Limited Overs Career and was a pseudo captain in tough situations under Virat Kohli.
You will be missed, Mahi and I look forward to your IPL heroics this year and hopefully next year?
How will you remember MS Dhoni?
More than 15 years back in Bangalore, I had a colleague who was the go-to man for everything in the company. Though he was designated as a project manager he solved problems of many across departments. Then one fine day he resigned. We, who were close to him, knew that he was leaving for some personal reasons (nothing to do with the company) but quite naturally the company’s management tried to persuade him to stay back. Of course, it didn’t happen and he moved on.
As per Steve Jobs’ theory, he was an “A” Player of the company. Steve Jobs’ used to say that make sure to hire as many “A” players as possible because if you hire “B” players then invariably these “B” players will hire more “C” players and soon the whole business will become “average”. He used to say that it’s better to hire a small team of “A” players than having a gigantic team of “B” and “C” Players.
This brings us to Packard’s Law: No company can grow revenues consistently faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth and still become a great company. – David Packard (Co-Founder of HP).
What has been your hiring strategy? Are you patiently building an “A” team or are you doing a quick fix by hiring a lot of “B” players?
A few days back, I was watching “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” with my children. While watching the movie, I told my son about my experience when I first watched this movie way back in 1998.
I told him how I had to purchase the tickets from a blacker at Metro Cinema Hall. My teenaged son didn’t quite connect what I meant by “Blacker”. Then I explained to him how people used to sell movie tickets at 3X-4X prices outside the cinema halls.
He asked me a genuine question, what are those blackers doing these days?
Interesting question! Probably they have found a better job opportunity!
How things have changed in the last 2 decades! Today, the concept of buying tickets physically is no longer a necessity. Everything is available within an APP.
In the last 20 years, everything has moved from offline to online. Options to customers have increased and similarly, the buying cycle has also changed. Today we get more informed customers so the way we sell has also changed.
Has technology reduced jobs or enhanced jobs?
Has technology made us lazy or has it helped us to make informed decisions?
What do you think?
I overheard a conversation recently between my 16-year old son and 6-year-old daughter.
Neel: Rani, don’t touch.
Rani: Why? What is it?
Neel: These are medicines.
Rani: Medicines for “Karnataka Virus”?
Hearing the words, “Karnataka Virus” I and my son couldn’t control our laughter. My daughter seemed offended by our laughter.
Thinking over it later, I realised that my daughter had been watching “Wild Karnataka” on Discovery Channel for the past few days and so unconsciously Corona became Karnataka.
Children have this amazing concentration power because when they get glued into something they absorb it completely and their imagination takes them to that make-believe world which they have been glued into. This was a classic example of the same.
As we grow up we start getting distracted. Our concentration levels get divided. Very few people in this world can be great in multi-tasking. Most can actually concentrate on one thing at a time. Unfortunately, when we grow up we try to concentrate on too many activities and end up being average in all. Why can’t we concentrate on what we are best at and keep improving on it?
What’s stopping us from following this methodology?
Thoughts?
Hindustan Pilkington Glass Works Limited was a premiere glass manufacturing company situated in Asansol. In the 1970’s it was probably the best Glass manufacturing company in India. From there the trade union problem raised its head and the factory shut down in 1980. Over 2000 employees lost their jobs all of a sudden. My father was also one of them. From having a pretty decent lifestyle our family fell under a pall of gloom. The factory never reopened after that and even after many years of struggle my father and his colleagues never got their PF dues also.
With a young family to feed and hardly any savings, my father had to rebuild his career from scratch. I had already got admission to St. Vincent’s High & Technical School at that time. People living in and around Asansol would know that it was one and still is one of the premier schools of Asansol. My father’s paternal property was at Howrah and many of our relatives advised him to leave Asansol and come back to Howrah so that he can save on the rent and associated expenses. Also those days my Grand Mother was alive and we were a joint family so the expenses would have been less.
He didn’t budge and the only reason for him to not leave Asansol was for my studies. He knew that I have got an opportunity to study in one of the best schools and getting admission to a similar school at Kolkata could be difficult. He lived his life on his own terms and he didn’t have any ego when it came to work. Within one week, he started a milk booth sitting at the doorstep of our house. He could afford only 60 bottles of milk and each sale would give him 25 Paisa profit. Selling 60 bottles would give him Rs. 15 profit per day and that’s how he started. There were days in the first couple of months when we would have only Potato curry and rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There were days when my parents gave me the Potatoes and they had the curry. We couldn’t afford anything else. On Sundays, our very kind-hearted neighbour used to send mutton curry for me. That was my only non-veg dish and this continued for about a year till my father was ready to move to the next step.
In between, there was no compromise with my studies. My school continued as before. I was in Class 1 and I could feel my friends were far better off than me and my mother used to tell me, “don’t worry, study hard and you will get all the things that you want one day”.
Every day the ice cream vendor used to stand outside the school gate and my friends used to have those stick ice creams. One day I asked my mother, please give me 50 paise, I want to have ice cream. My mother didn’t give me. I didn’t have the maturity to understand the reason behind it. But one day, I saw a 50 paisa coin on the table. With both my parents not anywhere near, I pocketed the coin and left for school. That day I had my first stick ice cream. When I came back, I was asked if I had taken any 50 paisa coin, I didn’t understand how could they know about one 50 paisa coin. Later I realised that my father maintained a diary where he kept a note of each paisa so he knew that there is a shortage of a coin and after that realised he had kept the coin on the table which went missing. I admitted that I took it to have ice cream. Got a royal thrashing from my father and I realised how poor we were financially.
Anyways, with some profit coming from selling the milk bottles and the free time that my father had in the evenings, he thought of starting a shop. One of my maternal uncles was holding a top position at J Thomas & Co and he helped my father to get a few boxes of tea every quarter. My father was one of the 13 siblings and the advantage of a big family meant many of his brothers and sisters pooled in money to get him the seed capital to start the tea business. Once every 3 months, he used to go to Siliguri and get tea boxes which he then sold from a small shop which he took for rent.
Things started looking up and after a couple of years, he started Order-Supply business to local Asansol Market where he used to supply plastic packets. This venture helped him increase his profit and he became a vendor at IISCO later on where he supplied stationery and electrical goods.
By that time I was in class 6 and our lifestyles had significantly improved. My father didn’t believe in taking debt which meant he was never able to scale his business and it meant he never became a big enough player in the market. But, he was happy because he always said that “I do not owe money to anyone – so I get a good night’s sleep”. This he maintained throughout his life.
Just before Glass Factory closed down he had booked a Maruti Car which he couldn’t take delivery of, due to financial issues. By the time his business improved, he could have gone for a car taking a loan, but instead bought a scooter which he kept with him till we left Asansol in 2014. He finally got himself a Maruti Car in 2014 with full cash keeping his motto of never taking debt.
We used to live in a rented house where I spent my entire childhood. Finally, in 1991, he bought a piece of land and he built his own house which started in 1992 and finished in 1993. Once again nothing on debt so it took more than 14 months for him to build the house.
My mother was a typical housewife with visible tension written all over her face. If I was late for even 10 minutes she would be at the doorstep. As she left for the heavenly abode yesterday, I was left thinking who will wait for me in the way she did throughout my life. It was so painful over the last few months as she kept fighting Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and finally stopped recognizing me. From the days she can’t have food without meeting me at least once a day to a situation where she didn’t even know who I was. A journey that is so difficult to fathom.
My father had just finished building the house when my grandmother passed away and I finished my class 12. I couldn’t get through the West Bengal joint entrance exams but a few of my friends were going to Bangalore so I gave the CET (Common Entrance Test to get admitted to Engineering college in Karnataka) and got admission there. My father was not ready for such steep fees because he couldn’t afford it then. But he somehow managed and as I spent the best days of my life in Bangalore he kept struggling to keep us afloat. He ensured that I keep getting my basic things in Bangalore though it was extremely difficult for him financially. He could not get our 1st floor of the house completed because of my studies. We finally finished the house in 2006 when I started working in Kolkata after coming back from Bangalore.
In 2014 when he realised that it would get very difficult for me to maintain a property in Asansol because I hardly go to that place he decided to sell off the property. The day we were coming back from Asansol one of our neighbours came and told us, “If Satya (truth) leaves us how will we survive?” (My father’s name was Satyandra Nath Sinha) – that’s the kind of person he was – never compromised on the values and ethics and was happy with what he had. People who have seen his struggle through the 1980s know how he rebuilt his career from scratch.
After coming back to Kolkata he never visited Asansol again but one of his earlier dreams of owning a car was realised when he bought a Maruti Alto car in 2014 with full cash. He made me promise that I won’t sell this car until his grandson drives it. Still, 2 years to go for Neel to get a driver’s license but I will definitely make sure that the wish is fulfilled.
In 2016 as my father was diagnosed with a Chronic Kidney ailment, parallelly my mother was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease with signs of Alzheimer’s. It was a big struggle with my father often telling me that my mother should leave us early because she is mentally tuned to be too dependent on him. I kept telling him not to think of things that he just cannot control. Even during his last few days at Fortis Hospital, he kept telling me the same thing.
God has his own plans!
My father left for heavenly abode on 21st January 2019. My mother’s health kept deteriorating and she took the bed in May 2019 and from there on it was a daily struggle and in between this pandemic of Covid-19 her ailment took a severe turn and she stopped recognizing me for the last 2 months. Every day over the last few weeks we lived in fear as no doctor was ready to visit the house. Finally, the struggle and her fight ended on 9th August 2020 as my mother breathed last leaving me orphaned forever. Getting a doctor to visit and certify her death was extremely difficult. Once again the school for which my father didn’t leave Asansol in the 1980s came to my rescue as my dear senior Dr. Jayabrata Sen Sharma came down to certify her death.
As an adult orphan when I look back, I can only see the good things that both my parents gave me. I wouldn’t have had such a great school life without their sacrifices. My best days were spent in Bangalore and once again it was not possible without their sacrifices. Both times my parents went above their means to try and give me a good life because their entire life went in trying to make me happy.
How good a son was I?
I don’t know but I did my best within my capacity. I am nowhere close to my father’s values when it comes to financial management but I hope to get better. And I am very sure my father would have seen from above that the girl whom he completely disapproved of (I married Sushma without my parent’s approval) took very good care of my mother and left no stone unturned to keep her as happy as possible. Finally, she couldn’t succeed as Alzheimer’s took full control but she did her best.
Stay happy where ever you are and keep showering your blessings as I begin a life without you.
Om Shanti!