The Service Industry

SERVICE

One dictionary defines ‘service’ as ‘the action of helping or doing work for someone’! We are all familiar with the phrases ‘in service of the nation’ or ‘in service of the organization’ and also of the ‘service’ that we get in hotels, repair centers, shops, etc, and the ‘service’ of professionals like lawyers, chartered accountants, tax consultants, doctors, architects, engineers, etc. In our country and our culture and our heritage ‘service’ has been a way of life, we serve our families, we serve God and we serve our nation and we are proud to do so and in a lighter vein, we also, sometimes, pay ‘lip service’!

As the world evolved, as humans evolved, as technology evolved, life has become more complex and we depend on many people for their services to run our life smoothly. Be it the utilities like water, electricity, sewage, or, telecommunication, television, radio, internet, or, transportation, or education, or, tourism, or just plain information! Today, because of this increased patronization of such services the numbers involved are mind boggling. However, we expect the best from the Private Sector and a little less from the Government Sector…in our country the Government Sector has always had the bigger share in every pie, and this equally applies in the ‘Services’ sector, whether utilities, communication, education, transportation or tourism.

And, what about the people working in the service industry? In the Private Sector, the organizations select employees on based on certain norms, they have properly designed training programs and they inculcate a culture of ‘service’ in their employees and they imbibe in their employees the importance of Gandhian principles! Apart from this, the organizations’ mission also includes the tenets of ‘service to customers’, but, when it comes to the Government Sector, the people who are employed do not need to have any special qualities that sets them apart from other employees in other sectors, for them it is a government job which is pensionable and they do not think beyond these self imposed limits and neither does the Government as in many cases they create a monopoly in a given price-band - customers are a problem that they necessarily have to deal with and not attend to with sincerity!

Of late, with the proliferation of services and increased competition, there is a struggle in both the Private and Government Sectors to find the best people for the job. This is not happening as our education system does not cater to job-specific courses and if at all some institution does start such courses, they may not have due recognition and only a handful or a select few can avail of these courses at their own risk! The organizations involved in the Services Sector are also not interested in conducting in-house training as it is prohibitively expensive which can be afforded only by bigger corporations which have the advantage of a larger scale of operations.

This has resulted in the Service Industry suffering a lack of quality people and consequently, the customers are also affected as they are not provided the quality of service that is expected. In many cases, the customers are left with no choice and they choose ‘quantity’ over ‘quality’ and suffer the indignity of dealing with uncouth employees in silence! We, as a nation, have now devolved into a culture of ‘quantity’ over ‘quality’ in our haste to keep up with the Joshis, the Mishras, the Iyers, the Raos, the Roys and others in our neighborhood. We easily succumb to the puerile information given out by advertisers and fall prey to their predatory tactics…and then suffer in humiliation as there is no back up service provided by them for their defective products!

So then, is there a solution? Yes, definitely, as long as we, the consumers, are demanding and discerning, the service industry will improve to cater to our needs but, as long as we are bothered only by ‘quantity’ and not ‘quality’, then, continue suffering!

Kali