I have personally dealt with some of the biggest and most successful organizations of the country, as a customer.  Time and again, I have come to the realization that reducing variation and inconsistencies in internal processes is the key to successful organizations and happy customers.

Picture this scenario:  You want to buy an iPod and go to some of your favourite local e-commerce sites to do a search on options.  (You live in India, so there aren’t that many shopping sites to choose from!)  You find the product you’re looking for, at a price that you think is fair.  You click on the Order button, pay for the item via credit card and get a confirmation for your order.  Once all that is done, you realize that the system did not give you an opportunity to choose the colour!  Plus, the Order Confirmation page reports normal shipping time of a week.

Frantically, you try and locate the customer service numbers from the website, only to find out that the customer care center is closed after 6.30 pm.  The following day, you get through to the call center and request them to process your order on priority, and to ensure that the item they ship is in the colour of your choice.  The call center executive logs in your request of priority delivery and choice of colour.  In the meanwhile, just to be safe, you had emailed the same request to their customer service desk the previous evening.  A few hours after the call center confirmed to you that your delivery will happen in 4 days instead of the usual week-long period, you get an email response from the customer service desk informing you that only the standard shipping time of 7 days will apply in your case.

Now for the best part: The next day, you receive delivery of the iPod!!!

Would this experience result in frustration or delight?  What would you think about that vendor’s process abilities?  Would you be confident about any promise they make to you in the future?  Would you recommend this organization to any one else you know, or do business with it again?

This is not a small e-commerce vendor but, in fact, ships all kinds of items within India and across the borders – a kind of “Amazon” of India, if you please.  And, this is not an exception scenario, either.  It’s the same story across industries and markets, in most developing countries. 

So many organizations – at massive scales of operations, mind you – manage their customer data in Excel spreadsheets or in systems that do not talk to each other.  So many credit card firms call you every day for a free card, but continue to charge you renewal fees each year on your existing relationship.  So many airlines have you on their Frequent Flyer program and know that you have a preference for a window seat and a vegetarian meal, but will continue to book you in the aisle seat and run out of vegetarian meal packs before it reaches you… To cite a simple example, in India, we have one of the largest postal networks anywhere in the world, but are decades away from a simple forwarding service for your post, in case you move locations!

When will we ever reach the efficiency levels of a Shanghai or a Singapore?