Servicing Customers

Across the counters - Whom are they serving?

As a child I often used to accompany my father to places of work where only grown-ups were interacting with each other. One such place was a Bank in my childhood neighborhood. I used to see that people (including my dad) used to hand over a paper across a grill and after some minutes of some funny noise(s) he used to get some money from across the grill. Curiosity mounted and one day I coaxed my father to pick me up on his lap and show me what was really happening on the other side.

I found that a fat and unshaven man was counting money with saliva from his tongue. He had a very unhappy face and was definitely not enjoying what he was doing. Once my dad collected the money we were about to leave this place and I asked my dad as to why he was taking money from someone who was not happy to give it to him?? He said, ‘that money is mine and I keep it in the Bank for safety. Others do the same. Banks use that money for some other work and give us a little more than what we deposited.’

As a child, my mind did not understand why I should face an unhappy man across an iron grill to collect my own money!! I felt from my dad’s explanation that the Bank earned some money out of his deposit and shared some of this with him. If that is correct why are they not happy with you??

….that was 55 years back…. The customer was standing and sweating while the service clerk was sitting under a fan, over a fat cushion, swinging his legs and not smiling…

I don’t have to tell you the rest…you and I have seen the customer-revolution ‘over the counters’. Now we sit across a table, the aircon comforts us, the clerk (service assistant !!) calls me SIR !! This is how a service adapts itself to a growing discomfort in the consumer cluster and depending on the social adaptation standards, change sets in at a ‘localized’ pace.