My Daily Thoughts

On our recent trip to the US, I and my wife visited many US cities across the East and West Coast.  This was my 3rd visit to the US - so I had already seen many of the sights.  But this was my wife's 1st visit to the US - so everything was new to her. In my enthusiasm to show her various places I would make her hurry so that we can cover a lot more ground in a day and hence enable her to see more places.  I was therefore constantly hustling her to walk faster - and she started resisting this. I would get irritated at this and would remind her that I have already seen these places, and the only reason why I was hurrying her was so that she could see all the places and sites that I had seen on my previous visits. I wanted her to get value for money - and she should be able to proudly say "I have seen all that requires to be seen in these cities". In my eagerness to show her places I had forgotten that this is not just a sight-seeing trip - it is also a vacation in which we ...

On a recent visit to the US and Europe, I witnessed the difference between Customer Service (CS) in Europe/US vis-a-vis India in the airline industry.  This is for face-to-face situations (and not over telephone). Firstly, there is mutual respect in the US/Europe. In the US/Europe the CS execs are normally senior and empowered to take decisions.  In India, normally the CS execs are relatively junior or inexperienced, and normally have to escalate an issue to their supervisor for resolution. Secondly, in the US/Europe, if you stand in a queue you are reasonably assured that a solution will be provided - or at least a date will be given by when the problem will be resolved.  Both the customer and the CS executive tend to be polite and patient because there are clear guidelines on how to resolve a problem.  In India unfortunately the CS person is normally unclear about how to resolve an issue because the guidelines are not clear enough, or he/she is unfamiliar with the ...