Subway - A unique experience

Subway

I was working for Infosys Mysore for a period of two years. Infosys Mysore DC has a head count of 15000. The most efficient food court caters to employee strength of 2000 at a particular lunch time.

In order to facilitate the food intake of software professionals in limited time, the food committee has ensured that the caterers at any period of time work with utmost efficiency.

Service Offering - Subway, which usually prepares customized sandwiches, started offering Infy subs which were standardised, so as to increase the speed at which customers were served.

Competition – Dominos operated in the same food court. But due to the delays in preparing a pizza, some customers readily opted for Subway.

Operations Management – During peak hours the number of personnel increased

Marketing –

·         The employees were sent an email informing about the offerings.

·         The banners were displayed at prominent locations in the food courts.

·         Word of mouth publicity is very common in such captive areas.

Reliance Net connect - was not connected

Expectation from the service
a) 3.1 MBPS un-interrupted wireless internet service through its pre-paid or post-paid service
b) Usage based, speed based billing etc to be transparent as per specifications
c) Also for any complaints, customer service was expected 24x7

Experience
I wanted to avail a wireless internet service. Due to the feedback from my friends, I chose Reliance Net connect. I faced some inconvenience while purchasing the device, as the documentation required was not specified appropriately. Though, the personnel available at the outlet installed the required software for the service operation to compensate for the inconvenience.

When I availed the internet service initially, I was getting used to the technicalities of how my usage is recorded etc. Within a week or so, I faced problems with the connection often getting disconnected and the internet speed reaching 0 mbps. When I called the customer care, they asked me to change a setting. Though I followed their instructions, it did not help. Also, many times I observed that the usage of MB was mis-represented. The usage amount increased even though there were no applications running. This was impacting the prepaid balance. All these factors led to disappointment.

Customer need understanding
a) Wireless service offered at low price
b) Did not meet the Reliability and availability needs
c) Did not meet the Customer care expectations

Operational management
a) To improve their infrastructure to meet the specification of uninterrupted 3.1 mbps connectivity
b) To ensure availability of customer care service by increasing work force and phone lines
c) Transparent billing mechanisms to be detailed in user manual

Competition
Tata Indicom was the other major player. Tata Indicom was offering its devices for discount in corporates for ex: IBM. In the open market they did not offer discounts, but the brand Tata brought about trust and reliability.

Marketing
Reliance was highly visible through its promotions in televisions and other channels communicating the discount offer. Numerous bill boards were displayed at the retail outlets.

Public Transport Service Sector

Public Transport Service Sector
During my School times and Engineering days, public transport was my usual mode of transport to and back from School and College. I usually spent close to three hours travelling in the Delhi Transport Buses and the Private Undertaking Buses. During those times my experience used to be very horrible, the buses were over packed for their capacity, every traveler felt inconvenience traveling in the buses and which was far worse for the females, children and old people. Basically there were a lot of aspects for which the travelers were not getting the service that they should be getting in a metro city. First the DTC buses which were run by the Delhi government were asked by the private operators to follow them so that the private buses get the maximum passengers and the DTC thus followed them either because of fear or sometimes because of monetary incentives from the private bus drivers all these factors lead to a lot of inconvenience for the passengers. But recently after the starting of the metro service the my public commute experience have changed drastically not only the same distance took half the time but also the traveling experience was altogether very different with air conditioner coaches, well maintained stations with food outlets and easy billing for the tickets (metro card is an additional benefit). Overall its very safe and convenient and also have led to indirect economic benefits to many people like the Muslim girls in Old Delhi who were earlier not allowed to travel to far places are now travelling for work. And thus I can say that now this mode of transport have met my expectations of what should an ideal public transport should be. From this experience what I basically conclude that as a consumer what I want in a service are the following factors like:
1) Convenience
2) Ease of use
3) Safety
4) Cost and time efficient and
5) Good behavior of the staff.

Airline Ticket Reservation

I travelled to France for my exchange program by Air France at the beginning of this year. I had booked the tickets online for my journey there. This was very convenient. However subsequent modifications to the reservation could not be made online. I was notified that any changes would now require me to go to the Air France office. This was quite inconvenient. Also when I was in France, changes to my reservations could be made only at the local office. As I was in a new country, locating an office and going to it was quite challenging. An online service at this time would have been very helpful!

Vodafone Online Recharge/ Bill Payment

The Experience : Expectations and Customer Satisfaction

Till sometime back, before the online recharge had become as user friendly as it is today, I used to visit local vendors to recharge my cell phone. As it was a prepaid, the local vendor used to simply ask my number and used to recharge it in an instant. As it was a face to face conversation, I could every time ask for any better scheme that had newly arrived or move to a better plan. At that time firstly online recharge was not available and initially when it was, the flexibility of recharge options was not available. However today, the Vodafone online recharge system has become extremely user friendly. It has a wide variety of recharge options including top up or validity based on the users need just at the click of a mouse. It also offers the services of Bonus Cards online. Most importantly, no account needs to be created. Just put in your number, name and email and amount every time you want to recharge, and within a minute you will have an increased balance! Similarly, recently they have allowed the postpaid customers to pay their bills online in a similar way.

The online recharge and bill payment method has definitely lived upto my expectations of a user friendly, efficient service of bill payment/ online recharge. This has helped me recharge my phone at odd times and multiple geographies. It has successfully helped me in emergencies and there is always a peace of mind that I can recharge at any time.

Service Customer Understanding: Good map between customer needs and service offering. All services available at the local vendor is now available on their site. It is easy and convenient to change or modify according to the customer needs.

Competition : None of the leading telecom providers have such an easy to use online recharge facility. But bank portals provide this facility for most networks.

Marketing : Explicit marketing is not done. However a google search of “ Vodafone online recharge” ensures that the correct linked is shown. The efficiency and efficacy of the service itself compels the customer to return to the use of site.

Show Tickets Buying Experience

The tickets for Broadway shows are available online as well as at the counter at specific times. To buy the ticket at the counter one has to the particular counter and most of the time stand in a queue for a ticket. The number of counters are less and hence there is always a long queue at the counters. Also the tickets for a show on a particular day in the evening are sold only on that day in the afternoon at the counters. This makes it quite inconvenient. However the price of the tickets here are 50% that of that available online. The tickets to these shows are quite expensive and thus this makes it worth the wait and effort to come to the counter and wait in the queue for your turn. However in the end its a trade off between convenience, comfort and price which has to make whether to avail the service online or at the local counter.

Th Restaurant Experience

My recent visit to Pizza Hut brought out some interesting experiences. We were a group of four who visited the joint for dinner. This being a upscale joint for youngsters, there was high expectations in terms of service, quality, ambiance and the overall experience. In terms of the quality of the food, the experience was very satisfactory. The food that we ordered was brought to us in the right order at the right time. However some of the drinks that we had asked for did not even turn up till the time we had to pay our bill. We had to repeatedly ask them for the same and eventually they brought it right at the end when the food was over. This was highly disappointing given that Pizza Hut is a global Pizza chain and has high service and quality standards. Although the restaurant ambience was quite pleasing, there were tables which were not cleared immediately after a customer left it. This showed some compromise in cleanliness to the new customers who entered the restaurant. Also, this gave them fewer options to choose where they could sit to have their meal. Another thing that I noted was, as a custom/ protocol the waiters at Pizza Hut have to comment ‘Thank You’ in a uniform voice whenever a customer rings the bell on his/her way out as an indication that he/she enjoyed his/her meal at the restaurant. During my visit there, I did not see them doing so even if the customers rang the bell. This sends out a wrong impression to the customers that the restaurant does not value their feedback. On the positive side, the atmosphere is very apt for people to hang out and have a nice meal talking and chitchatting with friends. It is neither too loud nor too quiet for comfort. It is quite conducive for friendly conversations over a delicious meal.

A few recommendations:

1. The customers should not have to be required to call the waiter to place an order. Once the waiter shares the menu he/she should stand by at close proximity and be ready to take the order whenever the customers are ready.

2. There should exception in the order being brought to the customers. Everything ordered should be brought out in the right order at the right time.

3. The waiters should acknowledge the ringing of the bell by the customers under any situation. This can actually be their trademark or point of differentiation from fellow restaurants in terms of customer sensitivity.

4. A small enquiry from the waiter about the overall dining experience will go a long way in building customer relationships

Transport 2

In contrast to the New York subway system, there is no station master present at the metro stations in Paris, France. Also the ticket machines are sometimes only in French. This makes it all the more difficult to comprehend and take tickets. Also, as there is no station master present in most of the stations, it makes it difficult to print tickets and makes it a very cumbersome and time consuming process as there is language difficulty and little or no assistance.

Transport 1

The subway ticketing system in New York, USA works on a card that has to be bought from the ticket machine at the subway station. This may be a single use card or a multiple use card. Once when I was entering the subway station to take a train to a certain destination, the card at the entry did not allow me enter the station. The system seemed not to recognize my card. After multiple tries, my card got locked and would have had to wait atleast 10 mins before it would have started . When I enquired with the station officer, he simply asked my to walk by the emergency door to enter the station without asking anything about the ticket. He trusted that I would have had the right ticket, so without making any issue, he allowed me to get in. Such a judgement call went a long way in earning good will by the station officer.