Crimson Tide Movie- Conflict of Leadership Theories

Defining leadership is difficult. One size fits all approach in leadership is in effective as the elements involved are both internal and external on which most of the leaders find difficult to control. Leadership is an art as much as it’s a science. I am posting this long post to distinguish the behavior of 2 defined leadership theories when in crisis.

Crimson Tide is a captivating movie set in the backdrop of an eminent nuclear crisis between nations and a drama that unravels on board a US nuclear submarine. An intense movie played by Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington, I observed a conflict of leadership theories. This movie by far being a thriller is a text book on leadership. The traits, of the theory, as exhibited by the characters are discussed in this post.

The leadership theories discussed are:

1. Situational Leadership and
2. Contingency Leadership

What is Situational & Contingency Theories?

There have been efforts to classify leadership in various ways forms like Behavioral, Classical, Situational, Contingency, Contemporary etc. Even though Classical, Behavioral and other forms of leadership can be differentiated, there has been no clear demarcation between Situation and Contingency theories. On the retrospect, a closer analysis of these theories, there are commonalities the main one being extension of behavioral group of leadership models. Furthermore the Situational and Contingency theories focuses on the various *situations* which leaders may find themselves in.

Situational: This theory focuses on the use of a leader’s personal skills and natural ability to lead in a situation. A relationship is shared between the leader and the follower based on 4 individual styles. The theory states that instead of using just one style, successful leadersshould change their leadership styles based on the maturity of the people they're leading and the details of the task. The words “should change” highlights an important facet of this theory which is “Being Flexible”

The simple matrix below shows the leadership style against the maturity of the follower involved.

(Ref: The Hersey and Blanchard‟ Situational Leadership Theory”)

Contingency: Amongst the various contingency (dependent) theories, I am referring to the Fred Fiedler's contingency model. This model contains the relationship between leadership style and the favorable-ness of the situation. Situational favorable-ness was described in terms of three empirically derived dimensions:

1. Leader-Member relationship
2. Task-Structure
3. Leader-Position (Position-Power)

Situations are favorable to the leader if all three of these dimensions are high. The table below simplifies the contingency model.

Ref:http://jasonmatthews.hubpages.com/hub/Leadership-Theories-Three-Types-of-Contingency-and-Situational-Theories

The table above shows how these three variables can interact to form eight different possible situations (also known as octants) and which leadership styles are best for each situation. Unlike other contingency theories, Fielder's approach believes that leaders, by-and-large, have a set leadership style. In other words, if a leader is task oriented, he or she will always be task-oriented and cannot quickly change styles to adapt to a changing situation. This means in this model of leadership styles are “Relatively Inflexible”

Crimson Tide-Analysis of the characters and leadership theory exhibited:
Capt. Ramsey was among the very few commanders remaining in the Navy with experience in combat. Capt. Ramsey did not have an active family life. The leadership theory I saw from the behavior of the character as Contingency with primary focus on Task and not Relationship.

Lt. Commander Ron Hunter-Highly educated family man but no combat experience. He is working for the first time, as an Executive office, with Capt. Ramsey. Believes in Situational Leadership

Initial Interactions: The initial interaction had the nuances of 2 distinct styles of leaderships. From conversations starting at the 23 minute of the movie between the CO with XO the difference of opinion and body language is evident. Capt. Ramsey was task oriented and implied he found his new XO as indecisive.

As the crisis sets in the submarine the difference of opinions emerge. The CO being a task oriented leader is now trending in the 5, 6, 7 octants in the Eight Octant Continuum shared above.

Ramsey’s Approach:

Hunters Approach:

At extreme crisis situation: When the crisis is at the extreme, the actions of the gentlemen involved are as under. The XO demonstrates the flexibility of leadership which is consistent with Situational Leadership. His belief is applied:

Capt. Ramsey demonstrates his Task Motivated Leadership in a context which required Relationship orientation.

Summary: At the end of the movie, the decision of Lt. Commander Hunter was right and Capt. Ramsey’s was wrong. However as I conclude this post, I am faced with a dilemma on who’s leadership approach was correct in the crisis depicted in Crimson Tide. In Leadership there is nothing right or wrong. Lt.Commander Hunter is into relationship motivated approach with his subordinates. Capt.Ramsey with his task orientated approach finds himself in the wrong situation as per the contingency theory. In the final stages, where in Leader-Member relation was poor, with Task and Power high, a Relationship Motivated leader was the need.

I trust in relationship motivated leadership and the approach of Lt. Commander Hunter is my choice. Open for discussions!

Source: Secondary research from online resources and offline readings.Also,watching the movie couple of times!Disclaimer:Crimson Tide Movie and the clips of the movie showed belong to the copyright holdersSources of images other than the movie clips are given under the images & belong to the copyright holdersOpinions and thoughts are strictly personal

Paste Option Button Missing in MS Applications during Ctrl+V- Solved

Hasnt this happened to most of us when we use the MS Office Applications, Excel and Word? We do the Ctrl+V on the document and find that the formating is not what we wanted and the ever resourceful Paste option button is missing!!

This problem occured to me and for what reason, no idea, but let me tell you how to fix it...i.e. how to get the Paste Option Button Back. For that go to the File Tab and  then Options from the MS Application you are using:

The Options opens a new box in which you have to click Advanced, Scroll to Cut, Copy and Paste and tick the Show Paste Option button. The image is as under:

And that sorts the problem! Thanks for reading. 

Has Social Media Made Us Too Sensitive?

As I write this post, the memories of the Finnair and various other companies' PR mess in past few weeks is fresh in my mind. And it is with this foundation that I wish to start my new post on have we become insensitive?

It was in November 2001, Manix launched its advertisement called Harbor for its lubricating gel targeting the French market.

In what is seen as a serene, innocent picture, on closer examination, the details sink in. This advertisement, however, went on to win several awards including 18th Annual London International Advertising Awards.

Social media was in its nascent stage with Wikipedia taking baby steps that year and MySpace, LinkedIn Facebook etc launching within couple of years later. Hence this advertisement never got its chance to be shared, liked, tweeted, pasted to a wall or tagged.

Now fast forward the time period to October 2011.

10 years after the Manix promo, Chapstic rolled out an advertisement campaign " “Where Do Lost Chapsticks Go?” with the picture of a young woman’s behind (in jeans) as she bends over the couch allegedly searching for her Chapstick.

Underneath, the text is “Be heard at Facebook.com/Chapstick”

A blogger sees the image, takes offense, and writes about it on the Facebook. And Chapstick deletes her comments, which set off chain of events leading to the company apologizing and earning itself the dubious position of top 5 (or 3) Social Media disasters.

The point I wish to discuss is not on ethics behind deleting a social media post, but on the insensitivity part. Several people wrote on the Chapstic wall criticizing this campaign. The question is why have we become so insensitive. In which case, to me, the Manix advertisement was far more provocative than Chapstic.

So I leave this post with some open questions to deliberate upon-

1. Has Social Media opened up a Pandora box filled with criticism and insensitivity giving PR nightmares?
2. Or is Social Media right, in the sense of being democratic, for people to air their views?
3. Or have we become too sensitive?

My view- We, including me, have become too sensitive!

Thanks for reading this post and look forward for your views on this subject.

Disclaimer-Views and opinions expressed in the post are strictly personal. All products and logos are property of their respective manufacturer

Social Media Faux Pas- The Finnair story

Finnair has a very creative social media team and as an Indian, still remember the flash dance in a flight leaving for Delhi to celebrate the Indian Republic Day. This was 2 years back and the video has garnered over 5,235,462 views, 16,771 likes and over 6000 comments at the time of this post. This also meant Finnair flew straight into the Indian hearts with no big budget marketing spend. But what happened on social media is a lesson for all companies.

In the wake of Malaysian Airlines MH17 tragedy, many airlines had apparently announced that they were not flying over Ukraine on their social media account. FlightRadar24, a live flight tracker website, was prompted to respond otherwise especially to Finnair who claimed not flying over Ukraine. On being pointed out of the error, Finnair twitter account issued a further denial on the social networking site basis the..umm..shape of the earth. This communication could have been avoided. Social media went berserk and ensured Finnair posted an apology. Which they did, but in Finnish and later in English.

Learning:

1. Companies beware of what you post online
2. Double check the data prior to posting
3. Avoid baseless denial
4. Do not let things go out of control
5. Have an attitude to apologize but make it fast
6. Respect the power of Social Media

Sharing the timeline of the incident. Timeline courtesy- Twitter.com

(Disclaimer- Views and opinions expressed in the post are strictly personal)

Views are personal

The Green Blip

Abstract: The story of an airplane, lost in a storm, and what difference it makes to the Radar...

This was composed by me almost 13 years back. Lacking any rhyme or rhythm, with the loss of humanity in the skies, the reminiscence and significance of poem came back to me. A poem dedicated to the precious innocent lives lost so far!!

The heaven cried to the claps of thunder.
The sun sunk into the grayness of clouds..
Water rose to the tunes of the current..
Into this turbulence entered the Bird.
The Captain at the yoke looked grim and soaked
Hoping for that clear patch of air.

Hanging to the wings were a hundred lives.
Each with dreams and hopes of life
But for the radar that turned and turned
It was a green blip that blinked twice.
But destiny held a different promise
Took the plane for all and forever.
But for the radar that turned and turned.
It lost...
The green blip which never blinked forever....


Image courtesy-http://www.overcomingdepressionwithoutdrugs.com/
Originally posted in way2anand.com

Understanding the IRCTC Ticket

Do we feel perturbed after we have booked an e-ticket on IRCTC to find :

• The fare on the ticket printout is different from the base fare and 
• The amount debited in Credit/Debit card /Net Banking is different from the printed fare

I had the misery of booking several tickets in a month and looking down a barrel of losses, decided to  understand where is the money gets lost. This post is to give an insight to the charges that are levied to the base fare of a ticket. 

Ticket Break up:

The components of an e-ticket are:

1. Base Fare
2. IRCTC Service Charge based on the class of travel
3. Service Tax on the IRCTC Service Charge @ 12.36%
4. Point 1-3 constitutes the printed fare in the e-ticket
5. Bank Service charge- very much at 1.8% 
6. And a Service tax on this 1.8% Service charge which roughly means, the bank charges 2.02% on the printed fare and this is what reflects in the statements

IRCTC Service Charge:

Based on the class of travel IRCTC charges a Service charge as under per ticket and not per passenger:

Hence we see these charges in the e-Ticket as under (sample from a 2S booked ticket): 

Bank Service Charges and Tax:

IRCTC booking is a breeze as we have the option to pay sitting at home/office/or travel. But there is a cost involved. The first one is the IRCTC charges and the next one is the bank charges also called transaction charges. Various banks have various charges ranging from 1.8% to INR 10 and an addition of service tax to the above amount.  

Now these are the charges which we see only when the statement of account is checked. There is a comprehensive list of charges in the IRCTC website in the page where the payment options are selected. My recommendations on where the charges can be saved are given in the above table for the available options. 

Typically most of the users are either with Credit card from private banks or net banking. Most of the us are charged at the maximum levels of 1.8% + Service Tax. This works out to be 2.02 % as mentioned in point 6 on the Ticket Break up section. 

Consolidated fare break up:

Taking a sample base fare at INR 750, break up of charges for both 2nd Sitting (2S)/ Sleeper and AC Chair Car (CC) and above are given in the table to left. 

With this post, I wish to inform that as convenience comes at a price. For someone who travels once in a year, these charges are not much but for a very frequent traveler, this will pinch the pocket. Needless to say if cancellations come in, loss of money is extremely high which I shall discuss in the next post. 

Happy travelling!!!

Disclaimer: Brand names, logos and trademarks used herein remain the property of their respective owners. This listing of any firm or their logos is not intended to imply any endorsement or direct affiliation with this blog.

Sunfeast YiPPee: Comes with Plastic Thread to Choke You!

As per the social media team at Sunfeast YiPPee!’s, their manifesto is to provide long, non-sticky and tasty noodles. Agreed and we as a family moved out from Maggi onto the Sunfeast YiPPee purely on its merit of being a tasty fast food. But what was in store today was a rude surprise.

In the Tastemaker also known as Masala Mix was a Red Plastic thread long enough to choke you. For a moment I thought it was some part of the spices blend. But after cooking, it was clear it certainly was not edible and worse could choke anyone especially kids.

In the 20 odd years of association with Maggi never did I find anything so harmful let alone an impurity. Whereas, this upcoming brand, probably in a hurry to garner market share messed it up with quality.

Since the very customer focused ITC Limited has given limited time to hear from a customer (working day between 0930 hours to 1730 hours), I thought it prudent to post it online.

Either the manufacturer listens or let me be clear, I am not here to pay and be choked !!

The long, non-sticky and harmful thread

Rear Cover- With batch number and Bar Code

The Packet

How Holi was it for SpiceJet?

When Finnair did something similar 2 years back for Republic Day, they not just enthralled the passengers but cruised straight into the Indian hearts. The otherwise not so creative team at FlySpiceJet copied the concept this Holi. Appreciate the enthusiasm but not the bit of the Pilot leaving cockpit and recording and cheering.
Umm not an exclusive thought from Yours Truly. Seems the DGCA has rubbed SpiceJet with wrong colors for this mid air stunt!
Watch the mid air dance and a "Photo Sensitive" SpiceJet Pilot.

The video from Finnair-

DGCA has valid points for pulling on SpiceJet and crew. The Finnair dance happened after boarding and when the aircraft was on ground. The pilot was outside the cockpit for over 2 mins and 30 seconds. When we look back into the AF447 incident, it is understood that every seconds in the cockpit counts during emergency. My summary is that the pilot behaved irresponsibly and as for the dancing cabin attendants, well they could have done it on ground to avoid a litigation later.
A well planned sequence gone bust compromising flight safety. 

Throwing Safety to Wings- Indigo Flight 6E 031 evacuation

Indigo Flight 6E031 undercarriage catches fire which I feel is a landing which overheated the undercarriage complemented by an hydraulic leak probably which is again a reflection of poor service. What was surprising even was the slide evacuation video I saw. Passengers were carrying the hand baggage when using the evacuation slide. This is ridiculous. The undercarriage is near the most explosive area of an aircraft, i.e. the fuel tanks on the wings and center body. If they had spent time to open the cabin loft, pick their coats and hand baggage, I doubt if any one would have survived if the tanks blew up.

The instructions on the safety booklet is clear. The fundamental idea is a smooth exit hence anything that interferes with the sliding exit shouldn't be carried e.g. bags, loose clothing, heels etc.
An article in Time by Amanda Ripley compiled some tips on how to avoid injury and escape from a plane on an inflatable slide. Their suggestions involved planning, exiting the aircraft and getting off the slide quickly, jumping, the correct body position and avoidance of clothing that could cause safety issues, such as spiked heels and pantyhoses.
Even if one doesn't take time to read the safety manual in the aircraft, this link is vital for your own safety-

Time Article by Amanda Ripley-Click here

And time for Indigo to answer a few questions on the

1. Why the undercarriage caught fire and 
2. Why were the passenger let to go down the slide with their bags, coats etc?

My piece for Indigo airlines-Being 6E is not enough. Be a safe airline!

The War of 7!!

Indigo is 7 years and old and seems like Jetairways is already celebrating. They have checkmated any Indigo offers with their 7 days, 7 lakhs seats offer. Let's see what Indigo has up its sleeves.
What Indigo can do- The best they can do is to replicate the same offer but do it for 7 weeks. Price war at this stage with Jetairways is slightly tricky but an offer is required else it would have the same in pact on passengers the way Jetairways goofed up on their 20 years celebrations.
Spice Jet- Service is perishable but then too I feel Spice Jet will stay away from any pricing war.
Either way the dice have rolled and its good offers for the otherwise dull season. 

Samsung Galaxy S2-Phone says battery is charging when it's NOT plugged in.

I got a rude shock when I saw the battery was shown charging when the charger was unplugged. I had the phone on  a car charger when on a long drive before this issue set it.  And the worst thing to happen was upon shutting down the Samsung Galaxy S2, it didn't boot and had the battery charging logo flashing...and it was never plugged to a charger.
Solution:

1. The issue is with the USB port. 
2. The center part of the USB port was touching the other sides of the port which made the device think the charger was connected but the fast was the port was getting short.
3. All you need to do is to use a needle or a safety pin to space the center portion (to be done with the battery removed and phone off)  else
4. Plug in the charger again and move the charger pin slightly up and down so that the charger pin would center the portion. 

Problem sorted. But also ensure that you clean the port of any debris. 

Lenovo Laptops Battery not detected, Battery Not Installed- Windows 7

Early today morning I ran up to this complaint on my Lenovo Laptop:

Battery Not detected and further when I checked with the Power Manager it showed, Battery Is Not Installed. 

This was scary as I was on my way for field visits and without a Battery I couldn't think much especially during the month ends. 

Googling did not help either. The forums were full of information which was mutually opposing, but I needed a solution. 

I worked around with data obtained from the sites and concluded on a possible solution. And it was:

Installing the Power Manager for Windows 7. And Voila the fix worked. 

How to fix it:

1. Download the Power Manager file from : 

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-70601

1. Click on the Power Manager hfu406ww.exe

1. Download the file (preferably to desktop for easier detection) and double click to install it. 
2. The system would request for restarting. 
3. Restart the Laptop.
4. And Voila! You have the problem fixed

Please follow the steps and the problem will be fixed. 

Else drop in a comment and I shall worked around once again :)

Thanks for passing by!

Mocking Democracy- The Indigo Way

Why did they have to resort to this campaign

Indigo gets arrogant in their attitude by making fun of their competition. I was surprised to get this mailer with a teaser on the Jet Privilege Program.
Let's make it simple. By merely calling themselves "democratic" doesn't make them match up to the Jet Privilege program.
Be it a kirana shop or the airline, frequenters expect something special. Not appreciating the loyalty is not democracy  This also makes me wonder why the first row seats are not available in the Indigo flight during booking. Is it democracy to block seats?

Social Media Presence
Indigo should have got its fact right before coming up with this campaign. In a democracy the voice of everyone should be heard and opportunity given for people to respond. Jet has a strong resolution center both voice based and social media based.  And this confidence makes them be actively involved with social media be it Facebook or Twitter.
And what about Indigo Airlines on Twitter?

This is not democracy. And much more than that. Is there any point of difference that Indigo can talk about to get over Jetairways? None!
Jet Frequent Flier Program
The classification of the classes in Jetairways privilege program  is not discrimination. Whatever, Indigo is offering is there for ALL passengers of Jetairways. No passenger is denied of anything but the frequent fliers get an additional care and this care is what the passenger has earned due to the loyalty with the brand. Be loyal and everyone will get something more. Is this discrimination? No, I call it rewarding.

Flying with Indigo and Jetairways:
The experience is whole lot difference. I feel like a part in an assembly line when I fly Indigo where as I feel like a guest when I fly Jetairways. Air travel has an aura which runs in its DNA thanks to the steamer era and if a company wants to make money by making me just a bot, well I am not into it. Flying Jet has its charm, chaos, colors and noise that makes an average Indian feel at home.
As for Indigo I did have tons of good points to share but this new campaign is a big turn off.
Conclusion:
Hence not having opted for frequent flier program is the concern of Indigo and may be that could be many reasons that they are profitable. But showing those airlines with a program as being discriminatory is not the right approach. This cannot be used to garner the confidence of the passengers!

Cochin International Airport: Runway to Drought

Runway to Drought

It was early morning of 7th of April 2013 when I was in the famed Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL)- COK in the state of Kerala, India. Nedumbassery is the place where this airport is located and caters to almost 46,00,000 passengers every year.

But the thought behind the blog is not to highlight the efficient management of this airport but to throw light on the blatant misuse of water when the entire state and the country is reeling in drought.

Domestic Terminal Gents Rest room: There are more than 15 urinals in the rest room and I observed that they had manual flushing option with the Valve positioned high up the urinal panels. There was one or two taps for a panel. And probably for the convenience of the cleaning staff they had kept the taps open. Liters of water were being flushed continuously through the urinals for no use. 

Under the various known water regulations, urinals should use no more than 7.5 liters per bowl per hour (10 liters for a single bowl) and should have a device fitted to prevent flushing when the building is not being used. In practice, flow rates are rarely measured and will drift with time, or are deliberately increased in a usually vain attempt to solve odor problems.

Which means CIAL in order to have a clean urinal bowl is flushing almost 150 to 200 Liters per hour in the rest room. Which by any ballpark calculation is amazingly lot of water to be lost on a 24 hours cycle. 

Escalation: 

1. Seeing the water wastage, I closed all the taps and approached the Terminal Manager who put it on to the top management for not adopting to controllers in the rest rooms. Also with a planned renovation in the offing he subtly indicated that this system is there to remain for a long while. 
2. On the 11th April I called up the Airport Director (APD) and informed him of the wastage  A seemingly surprised APD assured me of immediate action. 
3. Same day I sent mails to the PRO of CIAL (pro@cial.aero) highlighting the water wastage. He assured me of advising the Civil Engineering team about this. Till date I have no clue why Civil Engineering team is required instead of issuing directives to the cleaning staff to limit the water wastage. 

Mail from PRO

Anyway I was happy to see pro activeness from CIAL and looked forward for my next flight from COK. 

18th April 2013:And it happened on this day! Exactly one week after the whole mail and phone communications. And what did I see?

No actions were taken and water is still being wasted at CIAL. 

Is anyone listening?

Flipkart or Flopkart?

8th October 2014
The Big Billion Day has drawn unprecedented hits to my Blog which was made couple of years back. I had then refered Flipkart to Flopkart due to the shoddy customer service they had. However, there was a change observed which was again updated by me. Later as the year passed by, the customer service, was back to what it was when I complained and Flipkart, piggy backing a sick economy, grew bigger.
Grew Bigger, yes it did. In a very large way that they finally decided to make the big kill.
Which was the Big Billion Sale on 6th October'14. 
Advertising on papers, hoarding and social media, the expectation was raised to very high extent.
But with "Out of Stock" and "Server down", a gullible customer was taken for a ride.  The "Crazy Deal" or also called "Steal Deal" was denied to most of the people leading to assumption that it was only a marketing gimmick.
Social media was crying for the Flipkart blood and the Flopkart tag was back into business.
And what happened?
The first press release from Flipkart was, "Yes Guys we got what we got. It was a grand success"

Business Standard- "We got a billion hits on our site today (Monday) and achieved our 24-hour sales target of $100 million (Rs.615 crore) in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in just 10 hours," the city-based e-commerce player claimed in a statement here."

Damn the success- When people were ranting about Flipkart, they had the guts to call it a big success. Wonder if the Bansals ever used Facebook and Twitter. Any one with a common sense would have first sent a regret and then make a subtle mention of the grand success. Anyway after much time an apology was made to every one in the mailing list from the Bansals. Big deal!

Sequence of events:
6th October- The Big Billion Day hurts the sentiments of the customer.
6th October- Bansals declare the sale to be grand success
7th October- Bansals apologizes.

What did Flipkart gain? -From this it is evident. Flipkart is just a mere roadside shop with a model to win the trust of private equity at the cost of consumers. Visitors coming to a site is the benchmark and they on the paper got a billion. A billion fooled. The next drama expected would be an IPO, which, even if I have balls of titanium, I shall stay away. Never invest in a company which has got the ire of customers.

Indians want everything big and Flipkart promised that. But failed miserably. A marketing stunt gone awry. A Billion cheated. The day was an opportunity for Flipkart to run ahead of competition.

Current scenario:

1. Hate for Flipkart is at all time high
2. The Big Billion Sale has widened the e-commerce market. Now e-commerce is a business to reckon with
3. Amazon and Snapdeal are the 2 other players left but people are yet to find that comfortable. Marketplace model  is tough to digest especially on trust
4. So, a market which was clearly in favor of Flipkart till 6th of October is not routed and bits and pieces of customers are aimlessly hunting for "Where next to buy from"

Flipkart has lived upto my name of Flopkart once again...Amen!

Pic: An apologetic Bansals. Part of the business plan. This is sick to play with emotions and then a roadside show to apologize. Grow up guys!

_________________________________________________________________________________
24th Feb 2013
Update: Flipkart Listens!! Great job by every one at Flipkart. My concern was reviewed and the last I know is that new process' implemented. Thanks Team. Changes will be always good for you as well as for your customers. RIP my constructive criticism :)

*********

Impression flopped!

Flipkart is an e-commerce site that in this business for over 6 years. During the last few months, I have been enjoying the services through couple of purchases and did not bother much with delivery time or for that matter even call up the customer care for any support.
The site was always in the top of mind recall and just for the experience of buying, have made some impulsive purchases which are still lying unpacked at home. In short I was happy to be associated with Flipkart.
But all that changed on 23rd Feb 2013. It started off with the purchase of a Pointing device which I desperately needed and the flaws in the Customer support of Flipkart was cracked open in front of me.
What went wrong and where?
The order was delayed and upon tracking I found it far away from my home town. Like any normal customer, upon emotions I called up the customer care to cancel the order. What I expected was a shoulder to cry on and share my grievances. But DANG! The customer service executive cancelled the order at the blink of an eye! And that too without even trying to convince me to retain the order. Now is this something that we have heard of anywhere? The local store in my street talks me into confidence for any cancellations I seek and here we have am e-comm giant readily cancelling orders. I wrote a complaint through the online Comments channel and what ensued was nothing short of mistakes made from the Customer care team which irritated me beyond imagination:.
Mails from Customer Service:
Mail1: Apologies and the usual Blah blah regarding how important I was :

Mail2: I wrote back my query was not addressed yet to which I received another mail:

Dull reply with the same apologies macro running. I wrote back again:
Mail 3: In mail 3 I got Mail 1 and Mail 2 apologies combined in one paragraph with some direction given regarding my complaint. By now I was seriously out of mind.

Last nail in the coffin was the Mail 4 which was repeat of Mail 3.

What irritated me as a Customer?

1. Cancelling an order without understanding as to WHY I was cancelling. I got this feeling that I was taken for granted. And then to understand if it was a customer executive issue, I cancelled another open order I had in my account and lo! blink of an eye, the order was cancelled. It seems like Flipkart enjoyed cancelling orders and assumed that Customers considered Flipkart as a bank to stock money and release the same through cancellations
2. Around 5-6 customer executives responded to my mail and none of them had any clue on the back ground of my mails and kept using the common template of apologies and mistakes and corrections and what not. Neah! this is not on. There is should be uniform communication and with a reassuring tone and not apologetic in nature.
3. Ok I made enough noise and shared my concern....so what? Flipkart had to be convinced  to give me a Gift voucher. A Gift voucher (be it of any value) is the only tangible expression of apology /understanding from a service provider. And needless to say these small acts would win a customer back. Why didn't the customer care department take this step much earlier and take control of the situation
4. Its being more than 24 hrs and not a single responsible person has called me to understand my concern yet except for many calls from the Call center. What the ..? Where is the escalation process?

Summary: 

What I have concluded is that however mighty Flipkart would have grown they have a very weak customer care. Its flimsy and would break down at slightest pressure. Beyond the mails shared in this blog, the customer care has given wrong information too and I have decided not to post it in public. They were digging their own grave with every passing mails. 

All I have to tell Flipkart is ..

• Customers are important. 
• Second point, when you willfully cancel orders or mishandle customers' sentiments, will you be able to amortize the cost of acquiring each new customer over his or her lifetime?
• You cannot keep 100% customers satisfied but however dissatisfied they are, they cannot ignore a particular online store.
• Hence the least you can have is Customer Care system which would make a customer feel special. 
• All the above stated actions will not cost you a dime even!

Last but not the least, the way you are going, in testing times, I doubt if you will ever have a loyal customer base to bank on. 

Amen! Flipkart to Flopkart..Clock is ticking!

Frequent Flier Programs- My Experience

Photo Courtesy photoend.com

The Story So Far:

Entering the Terminal one cold evening, I was counting on the number of the flights I have been taking over the week. The familiar sound and smells of the airport greeted me and home felt so far from where I was. Dead tired after a days work I looked forward for some relaxation. My assurance was the Platinum membership I had with the airline that I fly almost 4 times in week. 

Walked towards the check in counter of the airline. Very long queue. Searched for any counter who would love to attend to their 'guest' who till date had never thought of any other service provider. To my dismay there was no such counter  and after reaching the end of the long queue, the staff did not even bother to blink an eye to welcome back on board one of their premium guests. I was dismayed. 

The list of disappointment did not end here. Asked the staff if I could get an upgrade from the normal economy to Business. I had all the desired vouchers but at home. The staff crudely replied, "No Voucher..No Upgrades! Its the new Co. policy" Dejected, I collected my boarding pass and searched for a lounge to relax for sometime. More disappointment followed. 

The 'Favorite' airline of mine had shut down most of the Lounges. So the Platinum member, was scrounging for a seat in the congested waiting lounge. So much so at the time of boarding or at disembarkation, the Platinum Guest was meted the same treatment as any other passenger. The business class seats were almost empty and I wondered what stopped my 'Favorite' airline offer me some comfort. The grand finale of my experience was at the conveyor belt where in the Priority tagged baggage came  last. This was the last nail in coffin for the Platinum Member. It was time I introspected on what happened and the amazing fact is that it still keeps happening. During the period of introspection, I was trying to find faults in me. The Airline is always right. They have the right to create policy and the passengers have to follow suit. 

My personal notes:

Indian skies are currently catered by 2 players. Jetairways and Indigo. Indigo is a no frills airlines. No frequent flyer programs.And they live up to the name. 

Whereas with  my experience, Jetairways and its counterpart Jetlite promotes all facilities of premium airline, but in reality behave like a no frills airlines.If that be the case, it fine with me as long as they discontinue all "Privileges" rather than disappoint customers. 

All likely the airlines would say that I should read the Terms and Conditions, but ask any passenger or for that matter the concerned who made the policy whether he/she reads the terms and conditions of all products that they use in the day to day life. 

When you give Privileges, it should not look like being given as a charity. 

What do I expect: 

Most Important: If the airline cannot bear the cost of a program- Discontinue it. Inform the customers and there ends the matter. No bad taste and no mistrust. But avoid bringing in the word "Policy" to deny privileges. Alright, the airline still wants to continue the program, then my expectations are as under.

I don't expect any out of the world stuff just because I fly with an airline out of compulsions. But here I pen a few points which I believe will make me feel fine for being associated with the the airline. And if the airline is seriously into cutting costs, these points will hardly cost them anything. 

1. The staff at the counters are the face of the airline. Train them to great the customers, be it a regular or FFP member with courtesy. Add a extra few words for the member. 
2. Surprise your Privilege Members: Throw the policies to the wind. Rather than have empty seats in Business, why not upgrade a few privilege customers to business based on availability and catering capabilities than denying based on policy and vouchers, a surprise upgrade will bring delight and not make him or her blog the dissatisfaction. Delete a voucher from the system if need be so.
3. Religiously deliver what you promise- The tangible result is to see, for example, the baggage come on priority on the belt. Lame excuses from ground staff blaming the loaders will bring no respite. I see it as a failure of system to deliver. 
4. Privilege Check in- All high density airport to have a privilege check in counter. 
5. The next benefit a frequent flyer looks forward is  the lounge access. Cant afford to have a lounge at the all stations? Stop the entire facility since I feel that a  privilege member who is flying out from a small city has made no mistake which made him ineligible for the lounge.
6. Excess Baggage Allowance- Be it code share or primary, if you earn points on a certain flight you are entitled to use the privileges. You earn miles because you are paying for it in the ticket. What makes the airline think that their code share partner can charge for the miles but not allow me to use the excess baggage in it. Ready made reply - POLICY.else read the terms and conditions...hmm!
7. Campaigns and events- Conducting some exclusive activities for the privilege members will give that feel good factor. A dinner at a regional hub for invited guests, specific mailers and online campaigns, small gifts not more than a membership color pens, key chains, stickers etc will add value  to the membership.
8. Provide more avenues to redeem miles not just on flowers and high class hotels.  

I do have a lot to share but then I expect the blog to convey my thoughts.

Conclusion:

Currently my feel of being a Platinum member is that the Airline has done a favor by upgrading my status and that I am at the mercy of their policies, terms and conditions because I have no options other than be with them.

If that's the case, my dear Airline, please note that market itself will someday or the other open better options for the customers. Once that happens it would be a herculean task to get your frequent fliers back. Spend a little on them now and reap benefits during the rainy days. As we all know, its much more costly to get new customers than it is to retain the ones you already have!!

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Note: The comments on my blog are no longer moderated. Feel free to express your thoughts with some discretion of course ;) !

How Social Media Won Me-The #Jetairways Story

The Background:

It was an average end to a morning service flight. Standing next to the belt was me waiting anxiously for my baggage. Ahead of me beyond the airport lay series of meeting, presentation and anticipation of cracking an all elusive deal. Baggage delay was the least that I anticipated.

The Priority membership assured the baggage to come first. The bags start to roll in and to my dismay my Priority tagged Bag came the last. Gloom sets in, the feeling of being cheated by the very airline I flew almost 8 sectors in a week was unbearable. I opened the Twitter app and tweeted my grievance with @Jetairways and #Jetairways marked prominently. I wanted the whole world to know on what I went through,

It was only matter of hours, when to my pleasant surprise was a reply from Jet. Yes they have listened to me and not just heard. The tweet had the fullness of life and not a bot-ish reply. The most popular airline in India seemed just a tweet away to me. Over couple of tweets and phone calls from the concerned from Jetairways,  my baggage delay was escalated to reasonable levels and now I rarely get the opportunity to complain to that issue. Jetairways listened all because of the social media team intervention at the right time.

My pet peeve was sorted and from an "angry not so young man" with Anti Jetairways sentiments, I got converted into a brand ambassador for Jetairways especially on the social media.

What went right:
That was the story so far and its time for a quick introspection on what went right from the moment my first tweet was sent to the social media team. My views are summarized as under:

1. The tweet was replied within a short span of time - By this I got the confidence that this co. means business
2. The content of the tweet- The 140 characters had my name in it followed by an apology. Personal touch was immediately seen.
3. Tone of the tweet - The first feeling I got was that someone "human" was there who was keen to listen and also would be a solution provider rather than the gimmick solutions provider we interact when we call the mobile cos. help line in India 
4. The follow up -  The Tweet and the reply was not the end of the matter. The social media team at Jet ensured an escalation which was followed by the customer care dept making a phone call to my delight.
5. Closing the loop -  Once the issue was resolved the social media team ensured to close the loop
6. My open appreciations - My Thank You sent as a Tweet to Jetairways closed the complaint as well as informed the public that the Social Media team resolved my issue. It was actually my way of expressing gratitude to the Jetairways social media team :)

What is required before the Social Media team is set up:

In this subsection I share my thoughts on what makes social media a success for an organization.

1. Strong infrastructure: Jetairways seemed to have the a strong infrastructure and a proper communication channel to resolve issues. Aviation industry has the benefit of getting complaints after the service has been executed. This benefit does not go with other service industry like Phone cos. automobile cos, banks etc. So having a good social media team and a back up customer care will in fact help aviation attend to customer grievances better. 
2. The Right Social Media Team : Jetairways had the right bunch of people manning the social media deck. Be it Facebook or Twitter they interacted with people the way the people wanted to. 
3. Right Content: No unnecessary promotions or spams. Just plain good talking in the most uncomplicated way with smileys etc. This, as I mentioned earlier, gave the human touch. 

Conclusion:

Social Media when handled the right way can create brand ambassadors against having bad influencers. This tool was not available in the early part of the 21st century. With competition picking up, retaining customers should be focus of Cos. and what better way to connect in the current scenario than the social media way. Email responses to me are monologue and slow but social media gives a simplified two way interaction. 

Taking cue from my experiences shared above, do hope to see more service providers ramp up to : Be With Customers so the Customers are Listened to and not just Heard. 

And to the Jetairways Social Media- You have won a customer for life!

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Note: The comments on my blog are no longer moderated. Feel free to express your thoughts with some discretion of course ;) !