Good manager or bad...what do you think?

LinkedIn has become a great source of positive reading and professional anecdotes. You get to read experiences and incidents from across the globe. Most of the times, however, stories seem one dimensional and I know they never are. There are positive and negative aspects of most actions and at least from the point of the perpetrators, there is a perceived goodness about them. Thinking back, I realize I have been privy to many events that require an analysis. So, sharing one such story I came across in the year 2005.

Story that I am about to share is practically a hearsay. I only knew the manager and not the subordinate involved in this and manager never discussed it with me. But the office gossip brought this into my notice. In 2005, I was horrified and practically hated that manager for what I was told he did and it affected my relationship with that gentleman. He is one of the only managers whom I chose to not to be in touch with. However, after fourteen years and having seen so many different kinds of people, I don't know if my judgement of that person was right or not. So, sending this story and inviting you to share your point of view.

Telecom industry was undergoing tremendous changes in 2002, especially since AirTel had launched cost effective outgoing and free incoming calling services. It took four months for AirTel to print their first set of post-paid services’ invoices and a cycle of collection process was initiated. In simplest form, collection process is straight forward. You send bill to customer with 21 days to pay. After 21 days and a grace period depending on your process gets over, you restrict outgoing facilities for the customer which is called barring or dunning. Practically, there are a lots of data preparations and checks that take place before even a message intimating service barring is sent. A team of executives usually work on preparing the data, take required approvals and then initiate dunning.

This happened in 2003 or 2004, I am not certain of the year. But the process for collection was set as described above and one executive was assigned the responsibility for dunning. The structure in AirTel was very elaborate with COO heading circle and managing heads of HR, Admin, IT, Finance and Customer Service (CSD). CSD Head would supervise heads for Contact Centre, Service Assurance, Audit & compliance and Service Management Group (SMG). SMG head was responsible for all activities in collection process including dunning.

On that fateful day, dunning executive made an error in preparing the file and customers who had already paid were included in it. Now, process was set long back and he had been doing this every week so naturally he had developed a routine and a level of confidence. Apparently, the approving authorities also had enough confidence on this guy that they failed to check and validate the data. Result was that thousands of regularly paying customers were barred. A chaos ensued with customers shouting at call centre and front-end service executives. Lots of apologies and war like actions took place before the issue was managed, customers were pacified and their services restored. Punishment however was pending.

Next day, SMG head called entire service delivery team at their floor which included front end and call centre executives who had handled the crisis. The dunning executive was summoned too and he was chastised in front of everyone. SMG head then announced that this dunning executive would be summarily sacked. Only way he would be allowed to stay on job was if he took out his own shoe and put it on his head in front of everyone. I am assuming lots of shocked whispers and requests would've passed around however SMG head did not relent. Dunning executive had to put his shoe on his head in order to survive that day. Soon, he left the company for another.

I joined in 2005, and this story was regaled to me as an introduction of the SMG head and was advised to keep safe from him. I did not get any details of punishment directed towards the approving authority. I practically avoided this gentleman as much as I could and as a result failed to get in his good books even after exceptional performance. Only after he had resigned and left, I started to get praises and ratings that I deserved.

After all this time, having encountered my share of 'Horrible Bosses' and survived them; I am not convinced if what happened then was in any ways tolerable. I still feel what our SMG head did back then was wrong but over the years many of my colleagues had defended his actions to me. They say, it was required that dunning executive is punished because he was making errors regularly. Some say, SMG head was directed by his superiors to sack the executive but he chose to save his job by humiliating him thus. Many have asked me what I would've done if I was in either of their places.

I would like to think I won't make such an error however no matter what the situation might be, I would never take steps that both the gentlemen above did. What do you think? Do you have any opinion on this?

Catch me if you can - The LG India version

LG Story Part 1

Two more days have gone by and LG India continues to maintain their silence. I have called them, booked online complaints, sent emails and received reverts....

....my twitter DM is full of their apologies....

and I am starting a second blog dedicated to their exception lack of customer empathy. I am starting to admire their grit of not giving a shit but I feel I am coming to an end of my patience.

It has been 45 days since we booked our first complaint and till date no resolution provided to us. And I thought using a high end product gets you more efficient support.

I am booking online complaints to consumer forum helplines now. Let me know if anyone has any other means to shake these sleeping giants and get some resolution.

LG Electronics - entrapment or bad customer experience?

I have spent my entire career in managing customer service, sales and after sales customer interactions hence I have developed certain empathy for all professional in similar roles. Also, it is not too uncommon to witness a sort of thick skinned approach that treats customer as a number instead of an individual. This is most common when dealing with retail customers where number of complaints coming your way are too many for you to to give due attention and it causes, if you are not careful, you to develop a numbness that you fail to address even simplest of queries if they are out of routine.

With this preamble, let's get in to our story. This is my experience so I can be biased and would love your candid feedback on my expectations.

In Jul 2016, I bought LG refrigerator from Sales India at Ahmedabad. Model no is GL-T542GNSL which cost me 56000 rupees. This was almost three times the size of usual refrigerators we use in middle class homes however being part of a joint family with eight adults and seven growing young ones, it felt we needed it. This was our third LG refrigerator, first one lasted for over a decade and the second one bought in May 2010 is working till date hence we were confident that investing a large sum in LG product will be worth it's while. We had a good experience buying and installation was smooth. For almost 30 months, we had no reason to complaint. However, as 2019 began, we were brought in face to face with the LG regime.

We first launched a complaint on 6th Jan 2019 however somehow they booked a demo instead of service complaint and we were requested to book another complaint three days later. After a few calls, service engineer Mr Harsh came to our home, shut off the machine for a few hours, did some servicing and left with Rs 600+ as service charge. He told that issue is resolved and you will have fully functional refrigerator within 48 to 72 hours. We waiting seven days but problem remained unchanged. When we called Mr Harsh again, he asked to book the complaint again via call center which we did.

This time, it took another five days before any engineer could visit our place. We could not save this person's name or number. He came, took some photographs and told my mother he will revert in two day's time. Another week went by and our problems were getting worse. I called the call center again and they gave me number of their TL which was never answered. Then I called Mr Harsh, he gave number of Mr Vijay, his TL, which was answered the next day. He said he will get it checked and respond. Finally, at the end of my patience, I posted my complaint on twitter. I did get a response and a call the next day. Mr Ravi spoke with me, asked me to recant the whole experience and promised he will get it resolved. Two days went by again this time and no revert was found.

Finally, I wrote on twitter again and Mr Ravi called me. He asked whether I was informed about resolution by their service team which I wasn't. He took Mr Vijay on call and Mr Vijay told me upfront that my refrigerator is non-repairable and I need to buy a new machinery. And, since the model I had, was out of production, I will have to choose a new model and pay the difference amount. I was shocked and couldn't understand their jargon however they told that they will revert with the actual amount that I will be reimbursed. Later I was informed that I have to go to LG outlet and choose the model I want to buy and LG will reimburse me 51% of billing value. This was utterly unacceptable however LG team refused to discuss any further stating I was given best possible solution and nothing could be done.

Last week, I went to LG outlet and looked at available models and chose the one that was closest to my machine in capacity. This was billed at Rs 66000. Same day, I went to Sales India and put my problem across. They spoke with LG Service Manager Mr Ketan and LG & sales India both emphasized that such errors were less than 0.1% and they will get me best possible deal. I was very happy and after a couple of more twitter messages, Mr Ravi and Mr Ketan told me that they have received approvals for 80% bill value and I need to pay Rs 22000 as difference.

On face value, I had benefited by 29% however in reality I was losing 22000 for no fault of mine.

As per LG service team, cooling plates of the machine are opened which are inside of the body and cannot be repaired anywhere but the workshop. There is no physical damage or wear & tear while usage but this is due to some fault at time of manufacturing which manifested after 30 months.

I requested to LG service team that in such a scenario, I should be charged zero or minimal depreciation. I also told them that the market price for the new model chosen by me is much lesser than billing price told by company so they can refund the money and I will buy the same model from market. However, that was also unacceptable to them. I then asked for some way of assurance that similar issue will not be faced in the new model however they choose to keep silent on them.

I had requested them to send me a mail from LG official ID about our final deal and given bank details. However, I have received a text message from a number asking me to deposit money in a standard chartered account. When I call on the same number, no one answers. I am writing on twitter since two days but it seems Mr Ravi and their social media team has also decided to vacation.

What should I do now? I do feel trapped as I am stuck with an expensive machinery which doesn't function and LG team apparently is not interested in resolving the dispute.

You have to understand that since my machine is fully function other that the internal fault and all parts are intact, LG will be able to harvest almost all spare parts. Besides, the high end models have almost similar look with silver steel outer body and almost identical internal parts. Even then LG wants to mooch off 22 k more from me.

Is this the routine customer experience or the thick skinned approach I talked about at the start?