What's in Store for India?!

That the economic outlook for Indian remains wobbly is a well known fact. In this blog, I explore what FY 14 has likely in store for us, and what we can do to make the best of it. Though no economic downturn is ever permanent, the recent cycles have demonstrated that they can be both longer and more frequent than ever, thus highlighting a unique problem arising due to the extent of interconnectedness of global economies. Cases in point: A remote nordic island, Iceland’s fall shaking up the entire global banking system in 2008, and more recently, Greece, Spain and Portugal threatening the stability of EU and the rest of the world; in short, a contagion effect is an omnipresent threat, now more than ever.

Although several economies worldwide have been hit by the downturn, India, interestingly enough, remains robust. We saw this in 2008, and we are seeing it again now. One vital factor being robust domestic consumption softening the blow to the economy. Let us take a closer look at some of the economic indicators of India. Indian GDP in 2012 at purchasing power parity stands at $4.825 billion making it the 3rd largest economy in terms of PPP (CII). India continues to be a rapidly growing economy as seen over the last decade and a half (GDP has grown from $250 billion in ’97 to $1.8 trillion in 2012). An interesting fact to be noted is that Agricultural contribution to GDP has shrunk from 32% in 1992 to mere 14% in 2012 indicating the rapid industrialization as well as growth of service industry. India is favorably predisposed with young demographics; India has among the least percentage of population above the age of 65 and is expected to add 290 million people to the workforce by 2050 as against a decline by 233 million for China and mere 29 million for the US. India remains a well diversified economy with sectors such as Auto, BFSI, Oil & Gas, Telecom etc. contributing to domestic consumption as well as exports. Despite global slowdown, we closed FY 12 with a GDP growth of 6.5%, and expect to close FY13 at around 6%. While this may seem disappointing in absolute terms, we must consider the fact that among the BRICS, India continues to be one of the fastest growing economies (in 2012, Brazil grew a mere 2.7%, and South Africa 3.12%). An important factor for this growth being domestic consumption fueled by a large and fast growing middle class. The Indian middle-class is among the largest in the world (expected to reach 60 million households by 2015 as against 13.3 million homes in 2005).

Inflation has remained persistent over the years ranging between 7 and 8% with primary articles and fuel prices being the drivers. But any fast growing economy is bound to face this problem. A strong economy would create inflationary pressure as companies battle for workers and raw materials, pushing up wages and prices. Too, if the economy is strong, businesses will be eager to expand and will compete for saver’s capital, bidding up rates. This is the painful reality we need to come to terms with and realize the futility of expecting RBI to lower interest rates. Overall, corporate sector performance has been weak with disappointing Net Sales growth (14% for FY 13 as compared to 17.2% for FY 12) PAT growth expected 9.3% for FY 13 as against 12.1% for FY 12. The slowdown can be primarily attributed to rising input costs and interest rates.

So what can we expect for FY 14? Not much can be expected in terms of external drivers of economic activity due to persisting uncertainties in US, and Europe; China too is showing signs of slowing down. With rising crude oil prices, inflationary pressure will persist both on industries as well as on commodities. A silver lining on the horizon though is the recent policy agility demonstrated by the centre. Some of the reforms in sight are fiscal consolidation through measures such as hike in diesel prices (beginning with bulk consumers and progressively rising prices across the board), reduction in subsidiary on LPG cylinders, direct transfer of subsidies to poor people, and approval for disinvestment of four pubic sector PSUs. Slight easing of monetary policy (The recent 50 basis point repo rate cut and a CRR rate reduction by 25 bps is expected to infuse Rs. 170 billion in the system, a much needed respite), FDI reforms and land reforms are all positive signs. 

While the centre is doing its best to ring in the fiscal deficit and attract much needed foreign investment, these measures by themselves may not be adequate to revive the economy. India Inc. will have to depend on newer and innovative means to fuel growth. We enjoy several favorable conditions in the form of relatively cheap labor, quality consciousness, and global image as a reliable outsourcing destination for both products & services. The key would be for us to build on these strengths and develop our niches. Apart from growing the domestic market, it is essential to selectively grow our exports especially to some of the fast growing emerging economies. Africa is one such market, which is vast and still relatively untapped. The IMF says continental GDP of Africa will grow by 5% in 2012 and about 5.7% in 2013. A new research paper by two World Bank economists says that if Africa were one country, it would already be “middle income”, defined by the bank as having income per person more than $1000. Africa’s average is $1700. Technology is having a bigger effect in Africa than anywhere else, for instance, the use of telephones went from 0.7% of the population to 70% in the last decade alone! Africa is a global pioneer in banking on mobile devices since most people do not have access to conventional banks. Infrastructure is another big sector in Africa and rest of the developing world, diversifying into this sector would not be a bad idea.

In short, uncertainties and downturns notwithstanding, there are vast opportunities to be tapped and growth to be realized. The key for Indian industries is to remain patient yet opportunistic. With the right strategies in place, I’m confident that Indian industries will go a long way in not only beating these economic cycles but also coming out stronger than ever before!

10 Reasons Why ‘Silver Bullet’ Strategies Fail

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”

- Jack Welch

Fortune Magazine stated that “Less than 10% of strategies effectively formulated are effectively executed”. If Fortune is correct, only one in ten companies that do an effective job of formulating strategy are doing equally effective jobs of implementing it. For the rest, presumably, the well-crafted strategy is lost in the press of day-to-day tactical concerns or is left to languish in a report on the CEO’s bookshelf. Modern day management is punctuated with tales of hunt for the elusive ‘Silver Bullet Strategy’ that promises to transform the business and rid it of all its ailments. Be it Six Sigma, Lean, TQM or BPR, time and again we have witnessed strategic initiatives that have promised to be the next big thing in transforming the business, but only a small fraction of them eventually succeed in delivering long lasting value; for the rest - well they end up languishing as just-another-flash-in-the-pan, drawing flak from all quarters. Oftentimes, the reasons for failure are systemic and have nothing to do with the methodology itself. Let us try and explore some common patterns of failure observed in such endeavors, and understand why they fail and, and in hindsight, what could've been done to avert failure.

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   1) Not Aligned With Business Imperatives: Eli Goldratt in his book ‘Goal’ argues that in order to build competitiveness, a firm must focus on three things: Throughput, Inventory, and Operational Expenses; in short, a strategic intervention must answer how it will enhance the financial competitiveness of the firm and create long-lasting stakeholder value. One of the reasons why change initiatives fails is because they are not clearly aligned with such business imperatives. The business results expected are either not clearly defined or communicated thus leading to confusion and chaos. A successful change initiative is one which has clearly defined goals and linkages with business imperatives.

2) Not Creating a Powerful Enough Guiding Coalition: The Success of any change initiative hinges on the creation of a critical mass of change agents that truly believe in it and are willing to pull out all stops to ensure success. There will also be detractors and naysayers who will not only denounce the effort but also try to cause it to fail. Thus the success depends on how rapidly the leadership can create a critical mass of people who become the guiding coalition of change and nurture it till it becomes sustainable. This could very well prove to be the tipping point of success for the change initiative.

3) Poor Execution & Followthrough: Management guru, Ram Charan once said “Execution is a discipline and a system, it’s not only tactics. It must be built in to a company’s culture, strategy and goals. It’s a leader’s most important job. But many leaders today don’t do that. They spend time learning and deploying the latest management techniques. Execution is a discipline of its own, and today it is the critical discipline for business success.” Execution is an age old issue that has ailed strategy implementation. Execution encompasses defining clear start and end points, selecting the right change agents, setting appropriate goals, identifying key milestones and target, implementing the right KPI monitoring mechanism, and adhering to timelines. Most organizations struggle to differentiate strategy from daily operations, which becomes the starting point of failure. If an organization is not able to treat strategy execution as an equally important task as as day-to-day operations, they must avoid trying to execute it.

4) Poor Internal Communication: Communication plays a vital role especially during the initial stages of the change process. A well defined communication campaign will help set the right expectations, create a platform for two way information exchange, and deal with employee apprehension and resistance to change. Not too long ago, I was privy to one of the largest change initiatives at a multi-national logistics company where the CEO took personal interest in ensuring that the communication campaign was designed to meet its objectives. Employee engagement at every levels was achieved through town-hall meetings, training sessions, dialog maps, and internal posters. All these helped to send out a consistent message across the organization thus ensuring wholehearted support for the movement.

5) Not Converting Short-term Wins into Sustained Success: Oftentimes the first and most crucial milestone of a change initiative is creating a success story. After this milestone is achieved, companies lose their way in converting them into longterm winning strategies. There are many reasons why this occurs, most common among them being change in business priorities and goals. The initial team that created the success is not utilized as flag-bearers to carry the message across the rest of the organization. These people are usually sent back to their line responsibilities and soon enough the flame is doused. Also sometimes the leadership lacks the long-term vision for change; the goals are set on a shortsighted basis of let’s say cutting operating expenses or increasing throughput or improving cash flow but misses the mark in term of long-term capability and culture building aspect.

6) Over dependence on the consultant: It is a well established fact that consultants can bring a lot of value to any strategic or tactical intervention. They possess huge industry insights from multiple sectors, which often proves to be a goldmine of information and ideas. Consultants can play the Devil’s Advocate by questioning the leadership’s strategy and can be a vital cog between leadership and execution. But on the flip-side, consultants do not understand the business as well as an insider. They do not have the empowerment or the support system in place to lead the execution. All these factors make it a dangerous combination to expect the consultant to execute change or replace the role of the CEO in the change process.

7) There is no such thing as silver bullet: Despite several flavors of the month programs that promise to be the next big thing, we are generally unwilling to accept the fact that there are no such things as silver bullets or panacea for all our strategic ailments. While proven methodologies like Six Sigma, Lean and BPR hold the potential to deliver significant business results, the true power of these methodologies can be unleashed only through a systematic, diligent, time-bound and consistent effort.

8) Wrong KPIs: While recently delivering Champions training to the leadership team of a well diversified group that has deployed Six Sigma for over 9 years, I observed that one of their moot points was whether Six Sigma is still delivering business results (read: bottom-line results). And to my surprise, several of the divisional heads carried the opinion that it was not. The general perception was that while 6 Sigma was well aligned to customer needs, the line of sight with the divisions competitiveness & profitability was not established. Hence many of the leaders ended giving only partial support to the program. This highlighted a gaping hole in the firm’s Six Sigma strategy. Despite deploying it for almost a decade, they still lacked clarity on what must be the right KPI for Six Sigma. In another example, a large multi-national firm in India is deploying Lean Six Sigma across the organization. Almost all their KPIs are aligned with scaling up the trained employee base, and reaching a wider cross section of employees. How the belts will deliver business results on an ongoing basis is not clearly defined and very little focus is placed on actual project execution and success. While internal metrics such as trained employees base in themselves may not be bad indicator of success, but a lack of clear enough strategy for aligning the efforts with business KPIs is a sure enough recipe for failure.

9) Black Belts as Demigods: I recently happened to witness the Head of Six Sigma of one of the largest groups in the country speak about why the movement failed in his organization. The topmost reason he cited was that Black Belt (an other belts) were projected as demigods, more importantly expected to deliver groundbreaking business results on their own without any involvement from the process owners and domain experts. This is akin to expecting the doctor to cure the patient by consuming the pills himself! No black belt or for that matter change agent can succeed without active involvement and participation of the process owners and domain experts. This, in my opinion is the single biggest factor overseen by many companies that eventually fail in their deployments.

10) Solutions are Obvious/Superficial: The leadership team sometimes gets carried away by obvious and superficial solutions given by improvement teams. While the solutions may provide few short-term results but may not have any far reaching business impact. While this in itself may not be objectionable but what it does is sends out a wrong signal to the rest of the organization. People start believing that superficial efforts and gains are enough to please the CEO thus taking away vital enthusiasm and drive to push themselves farther. I recently witnessed the CEO of a large Indian firm fondly recall his experience of earning a Six Sigma Green Belt Certification while working for Honeywell. He said that he not only had to spend well over six months to complete and deploy his project but he also had to present his project to a steering committee chaired by Larry Bossidy himself (the then CEO of Honeywell) in order to earn his certification. This put a lot of responsibility on his shoulder to do a thorough job. Such leadership commitment sends out a clear signal to the organization that only the highest quality efforts would be recognized and appreciated.

Empowerment!

I have been going through a harrowing experience with an airline recently. I am a gold member in their loyalty program and have been religiously earning all my miles with them. Having accumulating enough miles to redeem a round trip, I called them to get my award tickets for a trip I plan to make next month. My sage of disappointment began right away.

I realized that they do not have a dedicated call center for the low-volume high value customers like me, who I presume will not exceed a few 100o in number. Thus each time I called, I was put on an average 30 minute hold before my call was answer. Also to my utter disbelief, I was told that the category of seats for award tickets were sold out, and we’re talking 2 months in advance here! I was not convinced and chose to lodge a complain through their website. I received a call the very next day from a “Guest Commitment Executive”. For some reason, she seemed to be in a real hurry to wind up the call, all that she said was that my complain had been resolved and that I was going to receive a call shortly from the loyalty program desk. In her parlance, a commitment for call back was in itself the resolution of complain. This time I flew off the handle, I put my utter disappointment on record. She had no choice but to promise that my complain will be taken up on high priority and that someone will call me at the soonest to resolve it. To this date the problem has not been resolved. My biggest grip is the fact that I didn’t see any trace of effort on the part of the airline to go the extra mile to retain the loyalty of one of their most premium customers.

When I was in the US, I have faced many service failures. But each time something went wrong, the company went all the way to retain my loyalty. There was this incident when I accidentally made an international call without using my calling card which ended up costing over $200. I hesitantly called AT&T to implore them if they would consider waiving off the fee. Without a moment’s hesitation, the call center executive waived the entire amount. I was shocked in disbelief by her heroic act of customer focus. I became a loyal advocate of AT&T for life despite being painfully aware of their lousy network because I know for sure that they will more than make up for it by their superior customer service.

Amazon is another brand that I passionately advocate. Once a hard drive I’d ordered online crashed suddenly leaving me in the lurch. I was in the middle of my MBA semester and couldn't afford even a few hours downtime. Without missing a beat, they shipped me the replacement drive the very next morning. They didn’t bother to even probe if my request was genuine. This made me an Amazon loyalist for life.

The common element in both these experiences was EMPOWERMENT. An employee at the lowest rung of the ladder was empowered to take such a bold decision on behalf of the organization. She didn’t have to waste time being caught up in the administrative quagmire in order to resolve my problem. These organizations didn’t become proactive by accident. They have taken the pains to systematically create the right climate and procedural framework to bolster such bold decision making. They have also instilled the value of customer service in each and every employee thus making them just as passionate about it as the CEO would be. So to summarize, the only way to attain and retain customer loyalty is by having a long term vision to engender a strong culture of service. Only then will companies be able to differentiate themselves and earn the love and loyalty of their customers for life.

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so"

-Mahatma Gandhi

You Can't Order Change!

“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”

-Nelson Mandela

I was recently gifted a wonderful book titled ‘You Can’t Order Change’ which chronicles the leadership journey of Jim McNerney, current CEO of Boeing. McNerney spent much of his career as a rising star and major player at General Electric, where he was one of the three finalists to replace Jack Welch. Now at Boeing, McNerney cleared up a mass of legal problems, tackled the cultural issues that allowed them to arise, rebuilt the brand, and invested in new programs that promise a long, profitable future for the company. I was quite inspired by the profound leadership insights this book had to offer. Some of McNerney’s strategies that grabbed my attention were:

1. Help your people get better through measurable goals

2. Build strategy on customer focus

3. Invest in your strengths

4. Tighten operations with process improvement tools

5. Partner with global suppliers to reduce risk and accelerate time to market

6. Make ethics and compliance a clear competitive advantage

Closer to home, we have our own share of great leaders who have single-handedly redefined industry standards and set new benchmarks. One such leader I have always admired in Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways. Under his pioneering leadership, Jet Airways set the gold standard for customer service in the country’s booming aviation industry. I’ve always heard my dad say, “A great leader is present in his absence”, so true! I see Naresh Goyal in every employee of Jet Airways, right from the staff at the check-in counter to the ground and cabin crew. I am amazed to see the level of commitment and customer care that each employee exudes that one would only expect the leader to demonstrate.

I believe that one of the qualities of a great leader is the ability to build a culture based on shared values, and approach the change process in a very respectful way. A great leader realizes that in order to achieve the organization’s goals, he needs to win the hearts and minds of the employees. Like McNerney puts it, “You can’t order change, after all, there’s only one of me and 75,000 of them”. Another awe inspiring story is that of Matsushita, and the meteoric rise of National/Panasonic under his leadership. At the end of World War II, Matsushita stood up before a gathering of his dejected, demoralized workforce, in an occupied country, with all the company’s inventory taken by the occupying power, and said “I’ve been thinking about purpose”. He then painted a word picture that spoke to everyone, about how taking the lead in quality and innovation and low prices would force competitors to do the same and would ultimately eliminate poverty in Japan. He sat down to silence. Then, one by one his employees stood up, some with tears in their eyes, and said “I think I could dedicate my life to this.” Much of the ‘Japanese way’ that conquered the world’s economy in the 1980s can be traced back to that moment.

Jim Collins in his book ‘Good to Great’ gives us an interesting analysis on leadership. He deconstructs leadership development in five phases. According to Collins, the journey towards greatness begins from individual competency [level-1] and ends at greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will [level-5]. As Collins puts it “A Level-5 leader is the antithesis of the great ego centric leader, they operates first and foremost with genuine humility. But it is humility defined as a burning, passionate, obsessive ambition for the cause, for the company, for the work and not themselves. And they possess the utterly stoic will to make good of that ambition.”

LEVEL-5 HIERARCHY

A level-5 leader channelizes his ego needs away from himself and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that level-5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious – but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves. Further, there is a stark difference between a level-4 and a level-5 leader. A level-4 leader is charismatic and trusts his personal competency to get things done whereas a level-5 leader believes in taking people under his wing and developing future leaders.

So, what are the shared traits among great leaders? A great leader is one who…

1. Exudes energy and enthusiasm, does not need an external stimulus

2. Is consistent in his actions, walks the talk and leads by example

3. Faces problems squarely, is able to take unpleasant decisions in a timely manner

4. Is able to set a culture in the organization based on commonly shared values

5. Is not ‘resource myopic’ – is willing to trust other’s judgment in areas he lacks knowledge

6. Strikes a balance between hands-on and hands-off style of management

7. Is able to motivate his workforce to deliver results and pursue a shared vision

8. Is not afraid to nurture the second line of leaders under his wing

9. Is charismatic yet non-intimidating, is approachable and nurtures open communication

10. Sets precise goals and fair measures of performance

11. Is an effective delegator, but refrains from micro-management

12. Is never afraid to expose his ignorance and ask “silly” questions

13. Is genuinely empathetic

14. Demonstrates the highest order of personal trustworthiness

15. Puts his people and the company ahead of himself

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

-Lao Tzu

How thick skinned can we get?

Being a Lean Six Sigma consultant for almost my entire working life, I have always been hyper sensitive towards shoddy customer service. It could partially be blamed on my insatiable thirst for authentic real world anecdotes to drive my ideas home during my consulting escapades! I recently faced two such experiences that have prodded me to write about this topic and its impact on customer and the business.

I had opened an account with Chase Bank shortly after moving to the US. Chase was a natural choice given that they were conveniently located at a stone throw distance from my school and they had an ATM inside the school campus. My tryst with Chase began on a not so unusual note with a fairly simple account opening procedure. The banker who helped me open the account was a pleasant mannered South American, who was friendly and eager to please. The process seemed simple enough despite the fact that I was an expat without a Social Security Number. My nightmare began a couple of months later. It started with my debit card being abruptly blocked without my knowledge. When I called up to demand an explanation, I was told that it was due to a document that I had failed to submit. On probing further I realized that I had indeed submitted the document but they had misplaced it. The issue was not resolved right there; instead, they cancelled my debit cards and reissued them, thus leaving me in the lurch without access to my money for well over a week. Close on the heels came another untoward incident. One day when I was out running some errands, my debit card again refused to work. This time I was told that there was a much more serious issue. They wanted me to submit an additional proof of residence due to changes in bank policies. I hurriedly submitted a letter to that effect attested by my school authorities. They got back to me in a couple of days stating that the content of the letter was inadequate and that I should redraft the same. Despite submitting a new letter in the requested format, my account was shut down without my knowledge or consent. They chose to mail me the check instead of handing me the money at the branch. When I demanded that the check be handed to me at the branch, they cancelled the original check and promised to reissue the new one at the branch in a couple of days. I was never told that there was a mandatory waiting period before they could reissue a check and that it would take more than 2 weeks for me to get the new check issued. So I was left with no money again. This saga has been going on for almost a month now and the last time I checked, they had misplaced my check and were carrying out an “investigation” to find out it whereabouts!! Their callous attitude has thoroughly disgusted me!!

The second episode occurred with Continental Airlines. Since I am exceptionally tall, I have to beg borrow or steal for an emergency row seat every time I fly (for the sake of the precious few extra inches of leg room). I had booked myself on a single layover journey from Phoenix to Mumbai and there was no way I was going settle for a non-emergency row seat. First of all I was disgusted by the fact that the airline tried to profit by selling emergency row seats; I had to cough up well over $200 just for the “special” seats. Immediately after paying up, I received an e-mail message stating that I was allotted a non-reclining seat on my Phoenix – Newark leg of the journey. This was never indicated to me at the time of purchasing the seat! When I hurriedly tried to rectify this situation by going back to the website, I could no longer reach the link that would allow me to alter my selection. Worse still, when I called up the airline, I was put on hold for over 15 minutes and after being bounced around like a ping-pong ball, I was told by a rude voice that I had called up the wrong department and that I should call the web support team instead. The persistent sod that I am, I called up the web support team only to hear a recorded voice that told me that all the agents were busy and that I should call them up sometime later! By this point my patience ran out and I finally gave up with the hope that I should be able to make amendments at the airport, which was never meant to be. I didn’t find much respite at the airport either and ended up flying on the non-reclining seat. This seat had such an awkward contour that not only did it not allow me to sit comfortably but also completely prevented me from catching a wink of sleep during the entire 5 hours flight! This was indeed a welcome beginning to a well deserved vacation!!

These experiences have set my six sigma mind in overdrive once again. Several questions pounded my mind. So why did these organizations screw up? Was it so difficult to fulfill my needs? Were my needs so completely out of the ordinary? Were these people never made to realize the importance of good customer service? Is it so difficult to be sensitive to customer needs? Why do these people act like the customer is the greatest enemy to the organization and a serious impediment to their work?

While we all agree that superior customer service is the holy grail of modern day management, then why do we see so many companies missing this point completely? I have come to believe that customer focus is not just about a one-off heroic act of service but is a consistent behavior engendered by a message of customer devotion reverberated at all levels. It is a habit that needs to be interwoven into the cultural fabric of the organization. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with the country or region the organization operates in. One would be tempted to think that being in a country like USA where laissez faire is at its best is reason enough for an organization to be highly flexible and customer friendly. But that is not the case always. It is but driven by several other vital factors such as entrepreneurship and leadership at all levels, top management’s demonstrated commitment, reward & recognition systems, and most important of all, honesty & transparency with the customer.

Any organization which has over the years grown to be thick skinned and insensitive towards the customer needs has to engage in some serious soul searching. It needs to ask itself a few vital questions in order to find it’s bearing once again: How connected is the organization with the customer? Are the processes tuned purely for internal efficiency at the cost of customer service? Has the person serving the customer been sensitized to the pain the customer has to endure? Does she ever put herself in the customer’s shoe and ask the question: “Is that the way I would like to be treated when I am at the receiving end of the service?”

Training the employees goes a long way in engendering such a thinking, attitude and behavior. Like the old adage goes, thoughts become actions and actions become habits, it is very essential for the leadership team to nurture such habits among employees by recognizing and rewarding them. There also need to be clearly communicated consequences for bad customer service. The first step for which is have an efficient and transparent two way communication mechanism with the customer. I am reminded of one such attempt by an organization, a local Apple dealer/service provider in India who had proudly brandished a signboard stating that the MD was eager to hear the customer’s feedback and had his e-mail address printed on the signboard. But when I did write to him about a service failure that I had experienced I never heard back!! Such attempts only indicate a lip service, what is really needed in a clearly demonstrated customer oriented behavior, and a walk-the-talk attitude which has to start at the top and percolate at all levels of the organization.

So is there really a panacea for bad customer service? Maybe not, but then it isn’t rocket science either! By sticking to some of these fundamentals, any organization can be a customer centric organization, and earn the love, respect and loyalty of its customers.

1. Be accessible
2. Listen to the customer
3. Put yourself in the customer’s shoe
4. Be honest
5. Be responsive & transparent
6. Measure performance
7. Give real-time feedback to employees
8. Reward favorable behavior
9. Reprimand unfavorable behavior
10. Set the right expectations
11. Be consistent
12. Become process focused
13. Strike the balance between customization and standardization
14. Make customer service everybody’s KRA, starting from the CEO
15. Link performance bonuses with customer satisfaction