We have been told for a long time "Customer is the King" when it comes to business, sales, and marketing aspects. There is no business without customers. Indeed true. However, in today's environment, which is completely moving towards virtual relationships with customers, digital shopping, services, etc, does this phrase stand good? Of late (at least post-Covid scenario), I have been seeing several instances where the customers are given the lease importance. What matters to most organizations these days are Cash, Vendors / Service providers, Employees, and then customers, in the same order. Cash here means any opportunity for the entity to make some revenue or save some cost, at the cost of the customers' benefits or convenience.
Gandhiji once said, "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him". This may not be relevant today with shops and services going online, however, the essence remains to be seen as the basic thumb rule of any organization, especially if they are in the service industry. Because there is no business without customers.
This series of blogs is my experiences with some of the great companies in our country, which eventually decided "Customers are no longer the King". We and our employees, vendors are more critical for us to run the show. One or two customers getting disappointed with the service does not affect them anymore. The experience has been the same with companies from several industries like aviation, banking, delivery services, ride apps, theatre, and even an amusement park I visited sometime back. This has forced me to write about it, hoping there will be some turnaround. Am sure you will be able to relate to these as well. So let's see what and how customer service standards have changed (rather deteriorated) recently.
To be continued ...
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