Better Customer Service

One of our passports is due for renewal & had to visit the Indian Consulate last week. We had two options to do this. One – was to complete the various application forms, take a token & wait for the electronic lady to call your token number. This could easily take a good three hours.

The second – was to go the online way – register at the consulate website, complete & submit the required application online. Once this is done, you will get an email indicating – when you should visit the consulate with a hard copy of the applicataion that was completed online, photographs etc.

Obviously we decided for the online option.

Two days later we received an email confirming receipt of the online application & a date for the appointment to visit the consulate & submit the application (hard copy). So far… so good…

So we reached the consulate on the said date with all the documents & met the person concerned. To our dismay the documents which we had printed & carried with us were not the correct one. The rules & method had changed & since it was mentioned neither on the website nor on the email, no body was aware of it. Moreover, to our surprise, the rules had changed a month back & still it was not indicated on the website.

Most of the online applicants who were there that day were in an agitated mood. They were asked to go back & resubmit the application on a later day. Some were rushing to the nearest internet café. Those who were successful were the second timers.

A visit to the Indian Consulate is an extremely difficult & gruelling task. People have to leave home very early ( 5:30 or 6am) to avoid traffic & the queue, take a day off from work, parking is a nightmare, extreme procedures & numerous applications, long waiting time & the worst of all the attitude of the staff – appalling.

So, I then wonder –

1) A very large Indian population resides in Dubai – from blue collared to white collared workers & from entrepreneurs to business tycoons. The number probably could be the highest outside India & not to forget the revenue. So why can’t they offer a better service & facilities?

2) India Shining, Brand India etc etc – At a time when India is emerging as an economic giant, is this the image we would like to portray visitors coming to India for business or pleasure?

3) A visit to a private sector organisation, for example a bank, can prove what customer service is all about. So why can’t the government service improve? Is it lack of accountability & decision making?

4) India has plenty of world renowned IT companies who are developing software for various organisations locally & globally, but our consulate can not have a good & proper system in place. Why?

Outlandish Predictions

Financial/ economic predictions are quite interesting.

When the crude oil prices started its rally, it was predicted that it will touch 150$, 175$ and even 200$. Reason was supply-demand theory – booming economies like China & India, supply disruptions (Iran, Nigeria, Cyclones), US inventory etc.

But nobody predicted its steep fall of 20% with in 4 weeks of touching its all-time high of 147$ in mid-July. If the price increase was based on supply-demand theory - demand has not fallen by 20 % in 4 weeks. Supply disruptions have suddenly vanished! Now when it has started tumbling, new figures like 100$ & even $75 have started coming out.

So is the case with other commodities like gold & even the recovery of US$.

For every rise & fall, there is an analysis & a plausible explanation. The ‘how’ of it. But there is no explanation on ‘why’ & prediction of ‘when’ these will happen.

If the steep price increase was due to excess demand, demand can not drop by 20% in 4 weeks. Where has the supply fears disappeared? Then aren’t all these explanations baseless & these rise & fall mere speculations.

Another classic example is the US sub-prime crisis. With thousands of experts working with world renowned financial behemoths, they could not predict this crisis which started in the US & has become a full blown financial crisis with repercussions globally.

An Attitude of Gratitude

There was a nice article titled “Being Thankful” in the weekend magazine. It was written by a career expert Daniel Ough, who had also taken some points from R.T. Kendall.

A lot of people fail to see the wood for the tree, when it comes to their jobs. They conveniently forget about the benefits & instead choose to moan about their problems like work pressure, unreasonable boss, irritating colleagues, work too hard & paid too little, office politics etc etc.

There are thousands of people out there who do not have a job and would like to have one… Then there are scores of people whose working conditions & environments are worse than what one can imagine… So think of all the good & positive aspects & this will help us to like our jobs & perform better.

While as children, we are taught to be polite & say “please” & “thank you” on the appropriate occasion, we are not specifically taught to be thankful, thankful to life. The key is to develop a sense of gratitude towards life, to be thankful to life for giving whatever it has given each of us…

Have an “attitude of gratitude” in life.

Hanging 'Meals' & Life’s toil…

Some time back I had to visit a construction site coming up at the ‘Downtown Dubai’. ‘Downtown Dubai’ is a concept similar to that of ‘downtown’ New York or London. In a period of 2~3 years it will become the central business hub of Dubai. The visit was a part of my job to resolve certain technical snags. The project is a huge apartment complex with over 600 apartments & other modern amenities.

During the visit, I happened to pass by a makeshift wooden stand, on which some polythene bags were hanging. This was in the in the basement parking area & the palce was already in a mess, strewn with construction waste, equipments, material etc. Since these bags were of different colours it attracted my attention from far. It made me inquisitive & on closer look, I realised that these were the food parcelled & brought by the workers on site. This sight made me really heavy-hearted. Reason…

The working conditions of these workers are terrible. They work in the scorching heat, where temperature in summer hover around 50-55’C & with high humidity. They are poorly paid ($250p.m) & rarely on time. They have long working hours & very few holidays. They also work on holidays so as to earn ‘OT’.

Adding to this poor plight is their living conditions. They live in dormitories or more popularly called as ‘labour-camps’ located out side the city limits. These labour-camps are crowded & cramped with little ventillation. The trasnsport, to & fro from the site would be on buses with no air conditioning. There families, if they have, would be back home in their native countries.

Now let me move away from this dismal state of affairs. Each of these apartments that were being constructed were being sold at very heavy prices ($400,000 ++) & even higher in the secondary market. Rentals on these apartments were also quite high compared to market standards & were expected to fetch around $40,000 +p.a. To my surprise most of the apartments were ‘sold-out’. At the time of writing this, the above figures, from a Dubai perspective are exorbitantly high. So who are buying these? Indeed Dubai is a place for the rich & famous.

By the time people start living in these apartments enjoying the comfort & luxuries of life, people who built them would have moved on to yet another project continuing a life of hardship.

Moral of the story: The high price paid by the end-user does not percolate down into the system to reach the needy & improve their quality of life.