Left wanting in snail-paced Bangalore

A colleague called in last night saying he feared for the safety of his family. He was even more afraid as he was leaving town on work. The problem was this: He had called a city cab service to have a taxi come to his home to take him to City Railway Station.

The cab was to arrive at 7pm, but never turned up. Fearing that he might miss the train, he took an autorickshaw instead.

However, on reaching the station he received a call from the cab driver who had arrived at the doorsteps of his home. The driver threatened him with “dire consequences” for not waiting for him. The matter was later resolved by the cab service office.

But this incident speaks volumes about the professional levels in our city.

In the world of business and services, where the generally accepted principle is that the customer is the king, here we have a city where the service provider questions the customer — and abuses and threatens him — for his own lack of professionalism and punctuality.

This case does not stand alone as an exception; rather it’s become a rule. Look around at how autorickshaw drivers behave with helpless commuters who often have no other go but to depend on the three-wheeled menace on the roads — and mainly their drivers. They behave as if they are the kings of the roads. The fate and safety of their passengers depends on their whims and fancies, beginning with “choosing” whether or not to take the passenger to his/her destination.

A while ago, I was witness to a waiter beating up a customer in a restaurant over an issue about not bringing his ordered dishes in time.

Then there are these raddi-walas who come to your homes with a weighing kit and hoodwink you into believing that the amount of newspapers and throwaway books that are being taken away is considerably more than what you really think it is.

Look around. You will see how most of the services that cater to your daily needs are carried out. Lack of professionalism is prevalent in Bangalore. The reason may be that the city, which was never planned to be one in the first place, has grown so fast that the speed of evolution to professionalism is far slower than it should have been. That’s why we see that when some services (like milk supply and pick-up-drop for schoolchildren) in the city work with clockwork precision, there are a whole lot of others which are carried out in a sham-shod manner.

The need to identify demand and meet it with the required supply with efficiency for the customers’ prolonged satisfaction is what business is all about. This is a generally and widely known fact.

And we don’t see it here; at least not what it should be. May be, that’s the reason why when we visit any Western country, we return saying “Life is much easier there.”

It’s not impossible to make life easier here; only that we have to wait for that evolution to happen — rather, we have to make it happen.