The customer

Myntra.com has placed a number of commercials on television. One shows a man walking into a shop to return a pair of glasses after a week, saying that though he liked them, he wasn’t getting ‘the feeling’! The salesperson promptly responds by saying that if he was not getting ‘the feeling’ then neither would they, and proceeds to refund the money! A voice asks the happy customer: “Real life mein aisa hota hai kya?” (Does this happen in real life?), proceeding to say that it does on Myntra.com, which has a 30-day refund policy.
A couple of weeks ago, my daughter and I went shopping at the Xinhua Mall, Lahore, which was the most I could stomach in the scorching heat of Lahore. My daughter, who is eleven, was on the prowl for tunics, which we had a hard time finding in her size. As we looked around in Outfitters, there was a ‘junior’ section there; breathing a sigh of relief, we went through racks, mercifully to spot a shirt/blouse in her size, which was labelled ‘ages 10-12 years’. It cost Rs 790. When we reached home, she tried it on, only to find that the tiny cap sleeves too tight and cutting into the skin. We checked the receipt and it had a seven-day return policy. Despite my best intention to make it to the shop earlier, I being a working mother, could only manage to on the last day. I took the intact item to the counter and asked the salesperson there to change it to a larger size only to be told that was the largest size available in the juniors. I asked whether I could pick something out from the regular section and was told ‘no’; this was a surprise since both the sections are located in the same shop and the bills are paid on the same counter. I asked him why not, to which I was told that since I had bought the shirt from the junior section, I could only get an exchange from an item there; it did not matter if my daughter did not fit in any size over there and I should look for something ‘looser’! Absurd as it seemed, I being pushed for time decided to rummage for something to exchange the shirt for. I found a pair of yellow jeans but not in my daughter’s size, so I asked the salesperson to get me her size. The reply was that they were out of stock. Almost everything I touched was out of stock and this was not even a sale! I asked them if they could make a refund. No. A voucher? No. Could they make another receipt if I bought the jeans in another colour and size to be exchanged with another in the correct one at some other branch in the next seven days, since I would now be paying Rs1,390? No. Could they check when the next stock will come? No. Could they check if another branch had it? No. So what was I supposed to do? Apparently, go check every store in Lahore until I found something I could buy! At that point, I asked for the manager and was told that I was talking to him! By that time I had cursed myself enough so I just asked him whether Outfitters wanted to settle this in the consumer court. This elicited a call to another branch, made from my mobile, and off I went to change the goddamn shirt.
Earlier that morning, I had received a text message from my brother, who is hearing impaired, informing me that the UPS batteries had blown up at 4:00 am that day. I called my mother, only to find her extremely distraught as part of the house had caught fire and she had barely managed to avoid injury. Asked whether she had the receipt for the new UPS, which had been installed a day before, the answer was in the negative, as none had been provided. The next day, I decided to intervene, as the matter was not being resolved. I asked the electrician who had brought and installed the UPS why he had not provided a receipt and why a sub-standard system was provided. He said the manufacturer had not given a receipt and promised me to get a new UPS, a receipt and a warranty, but I had to talk to the manufacturer, as he would not listen to him. The manufacturer, a Mr Ashraf, refused to take responsibility, telling me that he was a Grade 17 section officer in the planning and development (P and D) department Punjab. Irked by his behaviour, I informed him that I would be filing a complaint with the chairperson P and D, the chief minister and the DCO. I got the replacement for the UPS but no proper receipt and neither did the manufacturer pay for the cost of the battery that had blown up due to the faulty UPS.
We do have consumer laws, but why is the adherence to these laws scarce? Why is there no concept of responsibility and product liability? Why does the government not take action for non-issuance of receipts by traders and manufacturers? What about customer service?
Customer service, unfortunately, has become a sadly neglected area. With the advent of international brands and stores and a mushrooming of local chain stores, the emphasis is entirely on profits and not customer satisfaction. Henry Ford is quoted as saying, “It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.” That seems to be just about right; if there are unsatisfied customers, who do not come into the establishment again, and that number increases, it is entirely possible that the profits will dwindle and eventually, it will be the employer paying the wages rather than the customer. And it sure doesn’t take an Einstein to guess which way that business will go.
I still remember going to the Punjab Store with my mother as a child. The said store was then based in the Tollinton Market, Lahore, opposite the Punjab University. My mother has been frequenting it ever since she was a student at the university and has continued to do so to date, even though now it has shifted to the New Tollinton Market near Shadman. What is the reason for such loyalty? Simple: customer satisfaction and immaculate customer service. Not only did the proprietor, ‘Uncle Asif’ as I called him, cater to the accompanying children, he provided excellent goods, a great return policy with exchanges and refunds and discounts. I do not remember a single visit when I was not given a handful of toffees by him. If my mother was dissatisfied with an item she had bought, he refunded the price, no questions asked — the golden rule of excellent customer service.
It serves no purpose blaming the salesperson; it is directly and squarely the company’s fault by making unfriendly customer policies and deputing untrained staff to carry them out. It is the manufacturer’s fault for not taking responsibility for a substandard product. It is the consumer court’s fault for not awarding substantial damages to complainants and just ordering replacements or cost price instead. It is the customer’s fault for accepting faulty products. Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart (a multinational retailer organisation) said, “There is only one boss. The Customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” But, “Real life mein aisa hota hai kya?”

The writer is an advocate of the high court