Customer service is a hard thing. Especially in India. The Indian consumer is one of the most demanding, and I would argue the most threatening as well. 

It’s amazing how high the percentage is of customers emails to us that threaten to go to the consumer courts on their very first interaction. They haven’t even heard us out – but assume we don’t mean well. That’s why the threat. 

It’s not personal. I now call it natural. It’s been hard wired in the consumers mindset. 

And here is the biggest reason

For years, organizations including and especially the government have dealt us a bad hand. We have had to fight for our consumer rights. Rights as a taxpayer. Rights as a buyer of products and services. 

So now our natural mode has become the fight. 

Worse still, organizations have mastered the art of offering explanations for their actions. 

“We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused”

No cool company 

Don’t hint towards the fact that you MAY have caused any inconvenience. You DID! 

Don’t apologize and be fancy about it. Say sorry. And MEAN IT. 

Speak just as you normally would. You know, human speak

And DONT GIVE A WHY

Solve the problem. 

Because guess what – the why may be right. The why may be true. The why may be genuine. 

But the customer doesn’t give a fuck about the why. 

They care about how you are going to help him. Not why this happened. 

Templates have allowed customer service to scale. They are now able to be less empathetic and more robotic to a lot more people than before.