This past weekend, my sister was visiting, so went on a dining and shopping spree in Bombay, patronizing primarily globally reputed brands. Let me detail our experiences from 4 distinct categories: Food, Electronics, Coffee and Clothing, tied by 1 commonality – Shock.
Stop 1:
Hakkasan: Day 3 of the opening of this Michelin starred Chinese restaurant on the 2nd floor of a corporate building in Bandra left us impressed overall but left some indelible questions. How can a world-class restaurant not offer valet parking services in Bombay given the onset of the monsoon? Worse still, the mid-end Indian and Chinese eateries bang opposite the restaurant offer this service! While the restaurant is well located for both South and North Bombay foodies, when compared to its global peers, it stands out like a sore thumb. The Miami Hakkasan is at the Fointainebleau while the one in Abu Dhabi is in the Emirates Palace hotel, both very high-end hotels. Surely, the promoters could have found a location in the city to maintain this global positioning. To their credit however, once you overcome the initial hurdles of parking and location the ambience, drinks and food provide an experience parallel to the global one.
Stop 2:
Istore at Warden Road: We purchased the ipad 2, two weeks ago (Having booked it almost a month ago) and discovered to our shock that the SIM slot was jammed after installing a MTNL 3G microcard in the slot. When we reached the store, the sales guy at the counter said, “Oh, this is a common problem. Keeps happening. Don’t worry, we’ll fix it.” So, we waited. And waited some more as they whisked our newly purchased jewel into a closed room out of our view. The team emerged after fifteen minutes joined by the store manager who said, “Sorry. This is not a hardware problem. This is a unique problem and has been caused by MTNL. We cannot help you.” She instantly put up a defensive attitude, refused to assist the customer, played the blame game and even said that they had not yet partnered with a 3G service provider so “the customer was buying the product at his own risk.” To put it tersely, we were shell-shocked! How could a world-class brand like Apple with a partnership with Reliance (supposedly comes with a seal of ‘reliance’) leave the customer abandoned without any recourse or assistance? We insisted they replace the product since we had a 1 year warranty on it, but they insisted it wasn’t a hardware problem ?!!? Eventually, after a prolong argument they agreed to send it back to the head office and file a complaint. We are now back in the lurch and anticipation of whether we will get a gadget that’s fully functional and if so, how long will this process take? We left the store disgusted with the customer service, and swore to ourselves that we would only buy these gadgets at international locations in the future since it would at least save us the 30% premium, we paid to buy the product in India, in hope of..... errrr, good customer service!
Stop 3:
Costa Coffee: The high-end coffee shop where I pay Rs.100 for my cappuccino rather than half that price at Barrista or CCD, cos it’s well... a premium coffee shop “experience”. Not quite. I enter the corner shop at Palladium Mall, order my coffee and sit on one of the 4 sofa seats (the other seats for some reason are regular chairs – no consistency!). I place my diary on the table, to take some notes and realize the table is uneven and rickety! I walk up to the kiosk to complain only to see that the guy making my coffee had placed the cup half-way outside the coffee dispenser area, which meant that half my coffee was spilling out! Shocked, I requested a different coffee and resumed my seat on the rocking table. Ten minutes later, as I was deep in thought, the sales guy (probably bored due to lack of customers), turned on blaring Hindi music on a FM channel! I quickly asked for my check, paid and hurriedly left the coffee shop to return to the peace of my bustling corporate office!
Stop 4: Guess
The store is frequently running promotions and I chanced upon one as I was cruising through the Palladium. I own one pair of denims from the store that cost roughly $100 and was elated to see the same style in 2 different colours being offered at 40% discount. I sifted through the stack, didn’t see my size and requested the sales agent to find it. She found a size larger, so I requested her to arrange for my size and in the interim keep the pair she had aside, clearly emphasizing that if they couldn’t find my size, I would just buy the ones they have in stock. I left my cell phone number with them and they assured me I would get a call “soon”. A week went by, and I did not receive a call. I went back to the store, and needless to say, the sale was now over. I asked for the jeans I had kept aside and got a blank look from the sales girl. I related the entire incident, showed them my request in their comments book and demanded my jeans. They looked through their stock and informed me that both sizes were now unavailable. Livid, I asked them to arrange for my size and call me. This time, I got a call within a week, so I went back to the store. They handed me the jeans but asked me to pay full price for them, since the “promotion is now over.” I argued and insisted they offer me the sales price but to no avail. Finally, I resigned and offered to pay the entire amount, visibly agitated. The salesgirl starts billing me and as I wait, she gets a phone call. She pauses my billing and has a conversation about the store stocks etc. with the store manager, as I stand waiting. Five minutes later, I have to cut her conversation and say, “Excuse me. Can I finish paying please?” to which she gives me a disgusting glare and grudgingly puts the phone down to finish my billing. I leave the store aghast at the customer service and feeling cheated for having to pay 40% more for a product I would have bought 2 weeks ago, had they informed me in time!
I could go on and on listing all the horrific experiences I’ve had with seemingly world-class brands in Bombay. The evidence is pervasive. Global brands should be cautious of serious brand-equity erosion as they ramp up their India presence, specially, if someone from an international location visits an Indian store. The sales staff MUST have adequate training, ideally visit the corporate office/HQ, work in an international store, understand what values the brand stands for globally and only then be allowed to work towards maintaining the brand value established over decades. Moreover, there should be an adequate customer feedback mechanism, with the store managers actively engaging with the customers and ensuring customer satisfaction. In the past, I have had extremely pleasant interactions with the customer service personnel from The Oberoi, The Taj, Jet Airways and even Airtel – interestingly, all Indian brands.
International brands seem to be applying the India discounting factor on the retail experience adopting the in India “sab kuch chalta hain” attitude. Perhaps, we Indians are more forgiving and accommodating to start with, but revolts and revolutions are not just a thing of our past.
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