Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Customer Satisfaction??

This is a true story. And how do I know? Because this poor tormented soul was a part of that story.

There is a small hotel kind of thing near the place where I m residing. We are regular at that place for the last 4 months or so. The hotel owner is having a small arrangement like one burner for chapattis and two for cooking other dishes. He was catering to some 7-8 tables and that was enough for chapatti wala burner to run in its full capacity.

For the last few days, he started putting tables just outside his premises increasing his customer count by at least 50%. It was ok as far as generating business is concerned but because of this he was loosing on two counts. First, it was hampering his services, as he was now serving as in installments..2 chapatis then a 15 min. break followed by 2 more chapattis!! Second, he was creating dissatisfied customers. Remember, dissatisfied customers are worse than no-customers!!

I was hungry like anything yesterday and because of that we (2 of my friends were there along with me) ordered 3 thalis, which in favouable circumstances should not take more than 10 minutes to serve. We ordered at 10:00pm and 10:20 we were still waiting for our dinner to come over our table!! I was dead tired and hungry and this game of hotel wala was like too much of ‘foreplay’ for me! At 10:30, I had it enough. First I blasted the waiters, then thought it would be a good idea to convey my feelings to the owner. He is a well mannered, educated and English speaking 50 year old man. I went to him and started like “ Uncle..its becoming difficult for u to cater to so many guys as ur capacity is less..There is no point in increasing the demand when there is limited supply..and blah blah blah..” Before I could complete, pat came the reply “ I know how to run my business. If you are happy with my services than have it here otherwise...Thanx for your suggestion”

I closed my account there, took the refund and finally had the dinner on my table at another hotel just before I was about to die!!

And they say it’s the era of consumerismand customer satisfaction!!

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