Customer Appreciation and Feedback

Further to my COO's blog last week .....

In August 2017, I will complete 16 years in the marine industry as Managing Director / Managing Partner at Moloobhoys.

In all these 16 years, one thing that I give a lot of importance to is Customer Feedback and what brings the biggest smile to my face is - Customer Appreciation.

When we have a service engineer who goes on board the vessel, to do perhaps a radar service or a lifeboat service and brings back a Service Report with glowing comments and words of appreciation from a customer and a "5" rating it makes my day !

The joy that I feel is immense and the satisfaction of leading a company, through whose efforts - the marine industry has benefitted; albeit in small measure; is tremendous.

A special place in my heart is reserved for the Men in White. When we get a word of praise from The Navy or Coastguard it brings about a different thrill. It is joy mixed with a surge of patriotism.

We recently have repaired some Navy Russian missile pcbs; which helped the Navy enormously because they were stuck without these repaired PCBs. Needless to say the job is done, 5 out of 9 of these repaired PCBs are tested and found successful (the others are awaiting trial and testing) but neither has the purchase order been placed on us (a confirmatory purchase order) nor have we been allowed to invoice; receiving payment is a long way off.

However the fact that we helped our country, though in a very small way, is something we are very proud of.

Service without pride and joy is no Service at all. It is the combination of skill, process and pride of work which results in an outstanding service.

Another issue comes readily to my mind.

Though we Service Providers are such an important cog in the wheel, and without whose service no OEM can maintain their business, no shipyard can deliver vessels and no ship can sail-still in the Indian marine industry we are given no status or recognition.

Have you ever heard of an award for the Most Outstanding Service Provider ? No one has even devised different categories or evaluation parameters for assessing the performance of a Service Provider !

After being exclusive Furuno distributors in India for 8 years, finally Furuno announced a Best Service Provider Award 2016 and we won it ! https://youtu.be/2PzVoOtnJWc 

The award sits proudly on my desk in our conference room, occupying place of honour.

What I must mention here is that customer appreciation is a two way street.

When a customer appreciates our effort, needless to say it motivates us and inspires us to raise the bar of customer service. It propels us towards achieving higher degrees of efficiency and fires us up to excel in our work - be it simple servicing of an Epirb or Sart or repairing a PCB or Disposing off a Pyrotechnic or carrying out the Inspection of Fire Extinguishers or Fixed CO2 Systems or Calibrating Gas Detectors.

It enables the customer to get more than what he paid for - in terms of quality of job and value for money.

I am a great believer in Customer Feedback and Moloobhoys are a very customer centric organisation.

A customer complaint if found valid after an in-depth audit; is tantamount to death in our organisation.

My message to the youngsters of today is forget your "ecstasy pill" or any other"substance high" - try the "hard work" and "customer appreciation" route and wow ! The high and adrenaline rush is indeed intoxicating !!!

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