At Your (Ser)vice | Nikhil Kabadi

This...... is a tale of two attendants......caught your interest? Read on..... Well actually speaking, two parking attendants. It is rightly said that the first impression is the lasting one that lingers on through out the service experience. The first encounter we have will determine the fate of the remaining ones in the process line. This was further reinforced in me in two of my recent service transactions; one with a car sales center and another with a hospital chain. Of course these two organizations are diametrically opposite in the business they deal in and the level of hospitality and service touch points vary considerably. But I’m talking about one very small, highly neglected and immensely important aspect of service encounter that is common for both - parking facility and the training provided to parking attendants. Parking your car or a two wheeler in Bangalore is a challenging and frustrating task. The vehicle to person ratio in Bangalore is the highest in the co...

I'm not sure about most of you, but when i make a new contact and want them to stay connected through social media, i get lost in deciding which of my profiles could best be suited? Should i add him/her via Facebook (i know we ultimately end up using this one first) or twitter or LinkedIn or should i first invite him/her to go through my blogs and let them decide if i'm worth the bait? To make things worse there are new ones that keep coming up and to stay in the league i'm forced to create my account there, fiddle around for a week or so until i've garnered the number of friends i'd in my mind, post updates and provide links to articles that challenge dominance of Facebook as under threat from this new kid on the block, set up my profile in its entirety and then switch back to Facebook to be socially active. It's always back to square one. I always wondered if there was one site that provided a detailed account of our social wilderness...

The next time you hear someone say "it's not my job", be 100% sure that it is absolutely theirs to do. I realized this recently at a place that so much depends on customer service for their business to survive; the Banking Industry. Let me set the context to this experience - the situation was we (me and my wife) were in dire need of cash (not in the sense we were bankrupt, but wanted currency from ATM) and to our rescue (so we thought) there was a Corporation Bank ATM right next to where we were standing, so we go to this ATM to withdraw money. Withdrawing from an ATM is such a routine, you insert the ATM card (in Corporation bank ATM's it gulps down you card until the transaction is completed, only then does it let out your card), key in the PIN (personal identification number), specify the amount and voilà, it spits money at you!!! Sure with our knowledge on this, we insert the card (which belonged to another bank) and wait for the screen where we can ke...

I wanted my first post on Customer Service to begin with a positive note. The experience i'm talking about has many ingredients that makes it interesting. First, this is about a coffee store (Beans n Brews Kaffe) and coffee is the eternal nectar of goodness that keeps me alive. Second, this is about service driven by a person who runs the show entirely on his own without uttering a single word and wins over the heart of his customers through sign language. I've my favorite and it is called Delicious Frosty Mocha that i have every single time. My wife prefers BnB Special , of-course without the ice-cream and sugar (leaving it insulted to it's name). I just like the whip of strong coffee flavor that is special to Beans n Brews. For me this is the next best thing i've had after 'Triple Shots on the Rocks' at Star Bucks (heavenly). In my office campus we have the Barista's and CCD's and local chai wala's, but i end up going to Beans n Brews e...

The primary reason i choose the web address as atyourvice.blogspot.com was obviously because atyourservice.....was not available. So the next best thing was to have a web address that best identifies the contents that will be posted in this blog. Allow me to explain.... I'm a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) professional and day in and day out i build solutions that have only one motive at the end of the day - "Make your customers happy"......period. As if, this practical experience was not enough, i've embarked MBA School to learn marketing and further understand how customers would like to be interacted and serviced to keep them happy and keep them coming back. To this quest i've put on a strange habit of gauging the customer service at absolutely every interaction i encounter. Few delighting, some encouraging and many disappointing. This blog is to put forth every celebrated touch-point i've had, that built a lasting relationship (and...