A Customer !

Its been almost a year since I came to this wonderland called Singapore. I am done with my Masters in Business Administration. My curricular and extra-curricular involvement helped me to identify my passion towards Marketing. With the advent of globalization and many countries liberalizing international trade, customers are getting more options and customer loyalty is becoming an alarming issue. Companies are spending millions of dollars to gain customer loyalty. My question is can customer loyalty be gained by respecting them??

I would like to share one incident with you. I had been to this Indian Restaurant Mr. XYZ (named changed to protect identity) in the afternoon to have some Indian vegetarian food; this place is near my hostel. I sat there and ordered my food. My order was:

 1. Chapati with dal worth S$ 3
 2. Chana Masala worth S$ 2
Total with GST (Goods and Service Tax)= S$ 5.40

 I was having my meal and saw a man in his 30's; he was a contract labour working on the ongoing MRT expansion project who came there to have food. When that man ordered his food he was told to pay his bill first and then have his food. Maybe the Manager thought since he looks poor and didn't wear expensive clothes; he would run away without paying the bill. Was this discrimination on the grounds of colour? clothes? futile worry of the restaurant manager? Anyways, he paid the bill and then enjoyed his meal; I could see the satisfaction of having that meal in his eyes.

Meanwhile, I completed my meal and went up to the cashier to pay my bill. It showed this:

 1. Chapati with Keema worth S$ 4.50
2. Chana Masala worth S$ 2
Total with GST = S$ 7.00

I was surprised and I told the cashier/ manager that I hadn't ordered Chapati with Keema but Chapati with dal and my bill is supposed to be S$ 5.40. He didn't believe me and called the waiter to check it and to my surprise the waiter said I ordered chapati with keema and to prove me wrong he even went to the extent of checking my plate to see whether it was dal or keema? I just told the manager, S$ 1.60 isn't a big deal for me and if he wants to charge me more I will pay it because I was insulted and then finally he said I think you are right and your bill is S$ 5.40.

How would I feel when the waiter when to the extent of checking my leftover plate to see whether I am lying?? I as a customer? Yes I am a student and S$ 1.60 would matter to me but here I just wanted him to charge me for the food I had.

Will I go there to eat again? NO!! Will I give good reviews about that place to my friends? NO! Did that restaurant lose one customer and all other customers related to me? YES!

Companies spend plethora of money to build their brand and sell their products to the customers. What if the customer is insulted by the way he is treated? My advice to all companies and hotel chains out there, would be to learn how to respect the customer. when I was a kid, I always used to read this quote in one of our regular grocery stores, "Customer is God!" In order to gain customer loyalty, companies first have to earn the respect of their customers. Respect isn't gained, its earned.

Do not discriminate your customers on the basis of colour, clothes or profession.

Its the customers who make and break the market! Respect them!

First 10 seconds..

"Life ain't about sunshine and rainbows, there is a cruel world out there waiting for you to fall so that they can keep their foot on your head and rise above you."

I would like to share with you a small story. This story revolves around the life of a boy named Felipe. He was born and brought up in the western part of Germany. He was a very obedient child. Education was always his primary focus. When he was in school, his life was occupied with the thought of scoring the highest marks in the academics. He never even thought of making friends. There was no such word like 'socialize' in the mini pocket dictionary fitted in his heart. He always thought, if he studies very well, the world will respect him. He had a perception that, his simplicity and innocence will get the world attracted towards him. Then he entered high school. His attitude was the same, not even an ounce of it changed. He went on to study medicine. He studied very hard. He used to study for around 7 hours everyday, just because of the millions of dreams he was carrying in his small pocket. Moreover, his thirst for success and the willingness to do something big in life made him pursue his post graduation in London. He was very happy, he had a faith in mind that success was at his doorsteps. He started working much harder and at the same time he used to see other students from his university, partying and socializing and think what idiots they are!! "We come here to study so we should only do that." After spending few months at the University and burning the mid night oil, he decided to attend a speaking club at his University. This had fellow members from all over the world. They used to go out and socialize at restaurants and bars. Nevertheless, he also started joining them. At this junction of time, he realized that he wasted his entire life reading about the world in books. He started experiencing the real practical world over there. When he couldn't manage to socialize in the crowd of people, he started feeling isolated from the crowd. He saw that the world out there is very different as to what he had read in books. The real challenge to him was throughout his life he hadn't given any importance to socializing. He had classmates who had few years of work experience and had confronted the real world and he just observed them as to how they manage to talk to people in the group and Felipe who was so proud of his hard work, just sat in between two groups who were busy talking; and was unable to even talk to one person. People started ignoring him. Just at that instant one of his classmate uttered these words, "The real way of assuming something about anyone is just done in first 10 seconds of his presence." Felipe then realized that the first 10 seconds of his presence in front of someone was like an introvert; and people didn't find any pleasure to talk to him. That day he came home with a frustrated mind, he had tonnes of questions in his head. After few hours of stress reduction session, he decided to change as a person. He thought, "What if people didn't bother to even look at me today. I will try to learn from them. There is no point in envying others. To be the change, I have to modify my attitude towards life." Felipe was very happy with this realization and he went to sleep waiting for a new sunrise in his life.

Being M.B.A. !!

"At the graduation ceremony, when you get your M.B.A. Degree in hand and realize that this degree has not changed you as a person you were before joining this course; indicates that the University has failed in its mission of educating you"- Prof. Mogan Swamy, Lecturer for 'Managing Entrepreneurial Enterprises' at James Cook University, Australia at its Singapore Campus.

Attended one of the most inspirational lectures in the University today. In M.B.A. we generally study about big terms like Market Segmentation, Consumer behavior, 4P's and 7P's. However, this is not at all sufficient to be a successful M.B.A. graduate. Prof. Mogan shared one of his experiences with us. During his youth when he was working as a waiter at French Restaurant, his owner used to check the plates which Mogan used to pick up from the table and drop it for washing. Whenever he used to find any leftover food, he used to ask the reason for it to Mogan. Questions like, "Did it taste bad?", "Did the customer complain?","Has the customer given any suggestions for improvement?". He would go to a extent of tasting the left over food to check the reason why the customer didn't eat it. This is what it takes to be a successful Entrepreneur or a successful manager in general. It takes a lot of pain to understand the customer.

We usually look at rich Businessmen owning big houses and expensive cars and feel that it is so good to be successful. However, we do not consider the amount of hard work and sacrifices they must have made to reach that position.

Getting a 'High Distinction' grade in exam indicates that an individual is a good student but that doesn't prove that he has understood all the lectures and is bound to be successful in life.

Few days back, as a part of Volunteers Club in JCU; I had been to a Junior College in order to talk to the A- level students about pursuing Psychology, IT and Business courses at our University. There were 4 Universities present on that day over there- Nanyang Technological University(NTU). National University of Singapore(NUS), Singapore Institute of Management(SIM). At first I stood there as an M.B.A. student of JCU to market the University and convince the students and I didn't succeed in convincing the students to at least come and visit the University promotion stall, However, I removed my ID card and kept it aside. Now, I was just a marketer standing there leaving the pride of being a M.B.A. student and guess what IT WORKED!!! To understand what M.B.A. is, go and stand there in the market and try selling your product instead of making 100 page analysis reports!!!!

I do not have formal work experience as such and was skeptical whether the decision of career shift from being an Engineer to a MBA graduate is good. Nevertheless, I have discovered that I DID THE RIGHT CHOICE. Engineering taught me how things work and M.B.A. is teaching me how things will work for me.

Hey you are a Bastard!! I will kill you....

SHOCKED?? Yes, this is what people usually tend to say when they are angry. Today I just have a story to share with you all.


This is a story about two people who were pursuing their Masters in Business Administration. Their names were 'Tom' and 'Harry'. Tom always valued people and his relationships and was a bit reserved in his behavior with the outside world. He would talk and be friendly to everybody but would always try to maintain a 6 feet distance from people who used to talk to him in a loud tone. He used to hate that tone because he was a firm believer that people who try to talk with a loud tone in order to force their ideology on others are basically weak at heart and lack the audacity to face the truth. Whenever he didn't like talking to someone, he would just walk away without saying a word. Whenever he had any kind of personal problems he would just keep it to himself and never mixed Personal and Social life.

Moreover, Harry was an angry young man. According to his school of thought, if a person talks in a loud voice and tries to suppress others with his point of view is a real life hero. He believed the only way to survive in this world is a loud voice and an angry tone. Whenever he had any personal life issues, he used to mix his personal and social life and try to insult anybody who used to confront him at that instance.

It so happened that Tom and Harry studied in the same class for their course.They were good classmates, NOT FRIENDS as such. Tom and Harry had clashes many times but Tom just tried to ignore it because, he felt that it was not his duty to show a right path to morons in this world. Nevertheless, he had other important things to do in life rather than wasting time to straighten a Dog's twisted tail, which is a donkey task .

But, one day Tom's threshold of tolerance was penetrated by Harry and he decided, its time that he should stop talking to him. He started ignoring him and was quite successful in it. Now, Harry became aware of this and started bugging him saying, "WHY THE HELL YOU DON'T TALK TO ME?". To this Tom replied. "Dude, I don't like people talking to me in a loud tone, so I have decided that its better we keep safe distance". Harry confronted by saying, "How dare you tell me that! I have the same attitude since last 24 years and I wont change my attitude for you".

Tom replied by saying,"Now that is up to you whether you want to improve or not but remember one thing in life, Don't try to amalgamate your personal and social life, If you do that I assure you that your life will be in deep shit one day. For Example, If you are a head of an organization and one day you've had a quarrel with your family, you go to office and some employee comes in front of you to ask for your help, will you insult and fire him from his job?". To this the brave Harry replied, " Yes! I will fire that employee from his job. I will never work for any Organization, I will be a entrepreneur and if some employee comes in front of me at that moment I will definitely fire him and wont even bother that even that employee has a family to look after because when this is my tone and behavior when I am angry and I don't bother what others think".

Moreover, Tom said," Ok fine, you keep your attitude with you and god bless you for your bright future". Harry was fuming at this instance and started vomiting abuses at him. And that was it, from that day onwards Tom and Harry never tried to even look at each others face.

People, I would like to highlight one important point over here. This life is too short for hatred. Where will you take this hatred? Why can't people be gentle in life? Why can't people pacify their anger and see this world in an optimistic manner? WHY? Why do people think talking in a loud tone is a symbol of bravery?

WHY? WHY? WHY?

Who knows tomorrow you may meet with an accident and die at the very moment or will be suffering on a hospital bed begging God to let you die. Will you take your anger with you to the grave?

This was just a fictional story, but please think on it. Try practicing love and spread love everywhere. This world is a beautiful place and one smile and a soft tone will spread peace and love everywhere. So that, when the day you are counting your last breath you can pacify yourself by saying, "God! I never gave my contribution for increasing hatred in this world. My deeds never caused anybody to feel sad."

The snow is melting out there and there is increase of global tension in the form of hatred and terrorism. Can you give your contribution to this world?