Ramana's Musings

On the 24th inst. I had posted that I intend sharing three stories with my readers about Senior Citizens. As chance would have it, I have had to post two posts on the same story about SCB and Anand, and the way events are unfolding, it is likely that I may have to post more.

The third story that I had to share was this. I belong to a yahoo group consisting of ex employees of one of my employers. Most members in the group are retired from the same company and some like me left prior to retirement but, we were all known to each other for many years and enjoyed our being colleagues during the time of our employment with the company. A few such persons now residing in Bangalore decided to arrange a get together of as many ex employees as possible and thanks to the Internet, the number of persons thus located and contacted became quite large. The first meeting took place last year and the second one is to take place by the end of September.

Since the list of members has been compiled by the moderator quite exhaustively, our email addresses telephone numbers etc have all become available to all of us. On my responding to one mail from the moderator, two old colleagues who I had lost touch with since twenty odd years ago, sent me emails wanting to reestablish contact. One of them also is the younger brother of a classmate close friend of mine, with who too, I had lost touch for over forty years.

Thanks to the Internet and the initiative taken by some well meaning ex colleagues, I have been able now to reestablish contact with three persons and I am extremely happy to have been able to do so, as the three others are too.

The point of this post is to emphasize, that the Internet when properly put to use is capable of bringing people together like this. In these days of isolation and alienation, such relationships are priceless and I wish to express my gratitude to technology that makes this possible.

What about you? Have such things happened to you too?

Tags: Relationships, Senior Citizens, The Internet

My post on SCB’s attitude towards Senior Citizens in general and to my friend Anand in particular has generated one anonymous commentator who gave me the telephone number of the General Manager, Credit Cards, advising me that I could speak to him. Another employee also commented that my friend Anand could contact her and she would ensure that he will get full satisfaction. One more contacted me via my contact box and suggested that I give him the name and telephone number of Anand. The first two comments are available in the first post and you can see that at least the lady with 15 years of service with SCB had the right attitude.

I responded to the third person who contacted me via the contact box and gave him Anand’s real name and phone numbers. Anand received a phone call from someone this morning which far from giving any satisfaction, has only aggravated the situation by that person asking for the email address.

My response to all that has happened so far is quite clear in my response to the comments made by Mike Goad.

The latest developments are as follows. Anand received a letter yesterday, dated the 25th inst from SCB advising him to accept ECS/Auto debit. The phone call to him came after the letter was received by him.

Now, to cap it all, I reproduce three mails in the sequence in which they were sent/received and I leave it to you to come to your own conclusion about the attention to detail that SCB pays to matters of customer service. I also suspect that there are too many people in the chain who do not know what exactly needs to be done at any given point of time.

Email No.1 from Anand to SCB

“I have been advised by your call center customer relations executives, Ms. V, Mr.M and Ms.S, on August 23, 2008, that since I am now a Senior Citizen, I can avail the facility of your credit card only if I authorize you to debit my savings bank account with you with any usage of the card. This is not acceptable to me. They have confirmed that my credit card has been deactivated, but have refused to send a letter in confirmation.

Under the circumstances, I am confirming that your deactivating my credit card is acceptable to me. I shall not be responsible for any misuse of my credit card, which after the last renewal has not been received by me.

I shall appreciate a letter in reply confirming that the credit card has been deactivated.

Thank you.”

The reply to this from SCB:

“Dear Mr. Anand,

This is with reference to your e-mail dated August 25, 2008

We understand from your communication that you are interested to opt
for ECS/Auto debit payment towards repayment of the dues.

Based on your request, we have forwarded your request to the concerned
department. The same will be actioned within 7 working days.

We request you to bear with us in the interim. One of our Officers
will get in touch with you shortly in this regard.

Assuring you of our best services always

Yours sincerely,

S K
Officer – Customer Care”

Anand’s hopefully last and desperate response:

“Dear Ms. SK,

Now, you are creating fresh problems. Please read my email again with a little patience. I do not, I repeat, do not, want to operate my credit card under your scheme for Senior Citizens only if they opt for ECS/Auto debit payment towards repayment of the dues.

I simply want you to confirm that my card has been deactivated so that I do not need to worry that it will be misused by someone. Why don’t you simply send me an email, or a letter confirming that my credit card has been deactivated.

Please take appropriate action and confirm, this time, proper action, thank you.

Anand”

Here is a classic example of modern managements entrusting customer service to call centers, major decisions being taken unilaterally without consulting or informing customers, particularly loyal customers of long standing, internally, no proper systems working to centralize the problem to take appropriate action and the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

My friend Anand and I had to change our bench from the usual one where we sit every evening at the joggers’ park due to a sudden downpour. We shifted to a bench under some trees. This bench was already occupied by an infrequent visitor, who we had seen at the park but had not met and made friends with.

The rain gave us an opportunity to make friends with this stranger and it turned out to be an illuminating meeting.

Our new friend is now 81. He is a Sindhi who came to Jaipur from Hyderabad, Sindh, in 1947 after India and Pakistan became two countries. His father started a small business in 1948 and our friend made it grow and flourish. A typical story of many such refugees who had to leave their homes in what is now Pakistan and move to India.

He is blessed with two sons neither of who stays with him at Jaipur. He is a widower and lives all alone in a palatial home in Jaipur and having sold off his business to retire, spends his time shuttling between Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Pune. His two sons live in these two cities.

The illuminating story that we heard was the sad change in his life style. Neither of his daughters in law is able to provide the kind of food that he was used to getting when his wife was alive. Moreover, his attempts at training the servants in both households have not been taken well by the daughters in law who fear that the help may leave if he does not handle them properly!

Our new friend’s loneliness and sense of rejection by his family came out loud and clear and broke our heart. There was little that we could do other than to invite him to join us whenever we were at the park and if he would like to visit us at our homes.

Such stories are very common among widows. This is the first time that either Anand or I had come across the same story from a man. Just goes to show that one has to be very lucky to be a Senior Citizen and be happy among friends and family.

Tags: Loneliness, Rejection, Senior Citizens, Widower

I have had an amazing start to this week. There have been three stories that I wish to post on my blog about Senior Citizens, Service and relationships. I shall do so in the next three posts unless something more urgent or interesting comes up.
The first of the stories is about a very good friend of mine who is a Senior Citizen. He is 75 and one of the gentlest people that I have ever known. I help him with his email and some other formal correspondence as he is completely lost with computers and requests me for help, which I am very happy to extend.
My friend, let us call him Anand, opened a bank account when he was 15 years old as a Minor’s Savings Bank account with his father as a joint account holder and guardian with the Lloyds Bank in Mumbai then known as Bombay. In the sixty years hence, that bank has undergone many changes, merging with, being taken over etc and went through new names such as Grind lays, ANZ, and finally, now it is Standard Chartered Bank. For sixty years, Anand has remained a steadfast loyal customer of the bank despite the many metamorphoses that it has gone through. Most of the employees there today were not perhaps born when he opened his account!
His Savings Bank today, is carrying a credit balance of over INR 300,000. He also has a couple of other long term deposits with the bank.
A few years ago, when Anand wished to go overseas, he had applied for and obtained a credit card from Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), which allowed him to use it for foreign exchange use over seas. Being a very careful spender, Anand has always been sparing in the use of the credit card and in settling the bills whenever they came, well before the due dates.
Early this year, SCB advised Anand that his Silver Card was due for renewal and considering his record, SCB was very happy to offer him a Gold Card with additional facilities. Anand accepted the offer and completed the formalities. Unfortunately when the card came through a courier service Anand was not at home and the card was returned. Since then, there have been phone calls and reminders between Anand and some Customer Service Call Center about this card and suddenly, last week, Anand received a call from the Call Center advising him that the card will be issued to him only if he gave SCB a letter authorizing SCB to debit his Savings Bank Account with any charges on the card.
Naturally, Anand was very upset and regretted his inability to issue such a letter. He requested the caller to send him a letter with reasons as to why this requirement has suddenly come about. The Caller advised Anand that this was BECAUSE ANAND IS A SENIOR CITIZEN! This was more shocking and Anand insisted, that a letter convey this to him. The caller, no doubt just a Customer Service Representative, expressed her inability to arrange for one. She advised Anand that since he was unwilling to give the desired letter, THE CREDIT CARD WAS BEING DE-ACTIVATED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT!
Anand had had enough and came to me with a request to type out a letter confirming this development and placing on record the fact the card had been de-activated. He desired to do this, as he did not want to suddenly discover that someone else had been using his deactivated card. I did as he requested and Anand promptly took the letter to the local branch of SCB and requested acknowledgment of receipt in a duplicate copy. The local branch REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE LETTER. They advised him to write a letter to their Card Center in Bangalore with a copy to some Customer Service Executive in Mumbai and also send an email to the Credit Card division.
Anand came back to me for these letters and email and all that was done last night. He has sent off the letters and copies by Registered Post and now is hoping that he will receive some response.
Is this how a Multinational Bank of repute should treat its loyal and long-standing customer? Should not the Call Center be taught to treat customers in a better way? Should the local office of the bank not handle a customer’s problem without being bureaucratic about it? What do you think Anand should do with his Savings Bank Account with SCB?

Tags: Customer Service, SCB, Senior Citizen, Standard Chartered Bank

I have had an amazing start to this week. There have been three stories that I wish to post on my blog about Senior Citizens, Service and relationships. I shall do so in the next three posts unless something more urgent or interesting comes up.
The first of the stories is about a very good friend of mine who is a Senior Citizen. He is 75 and one of the gentlest people that I have ever known. I help him with his email and some other formal correspondence as he is completely lost with computers and requests me for help, which I am very happy to extend.
My friend, let us call him Anand, opened a bank account when he was 15 years old as a Minor’s Savings Bank account with his father as a joint account holder and guardian with the Lloyds Bank in Mumbai then known as Bombay. In the sixty years hence, that bank has undergone many changes, merging with, being taken over etc and went through new names such as Grind lays, ANZ, and finally, now it is Standard Chartered Bank. For sixty years, Anand has remained a steadfast loyal customer of the bank despite the many metamorphoses that it has gone through. Most of the employees there today were not perhaps born when he opened his account!
His Savings Bank today, is carrying a credit balance of over INR 300,000. He also has a couple of other long term deposits with the bank.
A few years ago, when Anand wished to go overseas, he had applied for and obtained a credit card from Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), which allowed him to use it for foreign exchange use over seas. Being a very careful spender, Anand has always been sparing in the use of the credit card and in settling the bills whenever they came, well before the due dates.
Early this year, SCB advised Anand that his Silver Card was due for renewal and considering his record, SCB was very happy to offer him a Gold Card with additional facilities. Anand accepted the offer and completed the formalities. Unfortunately when the card came through a courier service Anand was not at home and the card was returned. Since then, there have been phone calls and reminders between Anand and some Customer Service Call Center about this card and suddenly, last week, Anand received a call from the Call Center advising him that the card will be issued to him only if he gave SCB a letter authorizing SCB to debit his Savings Bank Account with any charges on the card.
Naturally, Anand was very upset and regretted his inability to issue such a letter. He requested the caller to send him a letter with reasons as to why this requirement has suddenly come about. The Caller advised Anand that this was BECAUSE ANAND IS A SENIOR CITIZEN! This was more shocking and Anand insisted, that a letter convey this to him. The caller, no doubt just a Customer Service Representative, expressed her inability to arrange for one. She advised Anand that since he was unwilling to give the desired letter, THE CREDIT CARD WAS BEING DE-ACTIVATED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT!
Anand had had enough and came to me with a request to type out a letter confirming this development and placing on record the fact the card had been de-activated. He desired to do this, as he did not want to suddenly discover that someone else had been using his deactivated card. I did as he requested and Anand promptly took the letter to the local branch of SCB and requested acknowledgment of receipt in a duplicate copy. The local branch REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE LETTER. They advised him to write a letter to their Card Center in Bangalore with a copy to some Customer Service Executive in Mumbai and also send an email to the Credit Card division.
Anand came back to me for these letters and email and all that was done last night. He has sent off the letters and copies by Registered Post and now is hoping that he will receive some response.
Is this how a Multinational Bank of repute should treat its loyal and long-standing customer? Should not the Call Center be taught to treat customers in a better way? Should the local office of the bank not handle a customer’s problem without being bureaucratic about it? What do you think Anand should do with his Savings Bank Account with SCB?

Tags: Customer Service, SCB, Senior Citizen, Standard Chartered Bank

My young friend Anil has returned to India from the USA after having had a successful career as a Professional as well as an entrepreneur.

Since his return however, he has been having problems adjusting to the Indian way of living and has decided to use his blog to let off some steam. I have offered to debate him on the list of woes that he has posted on.

There are a couple of very nice posts there and I recommend them to my regular visitors with a request to leave your comments on them as well. Anil needs some TLC from us veterans!!

Do you agree with him?

Tags: NRI woes, NRIs, Returning NRIs

My young friend Anil has returned to India from the USA after having had a successful career as a Professional as well as an entrepreneur.

Since his return however, he has been having problems adjusting to the Indian way of living and has decided to use his blog to let off some steam. I have offered to debate him on the list of woes that he has posted on.

There are a couple of very nice posts there and I recommend them to my regular visitors with a request to leave your comments on them as well. Anil needs some TLC from us veterans!!

Do you agree with him?

Tags: NRI woes, NRIs, Returning NRIs

I use Tata Indicom India’s broad band connection for accessing the Internet. I have been using their service for more than a couple of years and have finally come to the conclusion that I shall not renew my current contract with them when it comes up for renewal in three months’ time.

It has been my experience that at least once, and often twice a month, their service gets disconnected for some reason or the other and I have to go through the agonizing process of first talking to their call center, who give guarantees that are never fulfilled. Let me illustrate my latest experience.

On August 21, 2008 when I tried to access them, I was unable to. I rang up their local engineer who looks after the area where we are located. He said that he would come around and attend to the problem and never did. I lodged a telephone complaint with the company at 8.30 pm and I was assured that the problem will be solved within 24 hours. The next day, the 22nd inst, I tried to contact the engineer without success as either he was switching off his phone or not answering. Much later, in the evening, he finally came on line and assured me that if I called him up after some time, he will be able to guide me to re-set my computer to get access to the Internet. When I called again, he was once again not available. This was after I had once again spoken to the call center where I was assured that my problem would be resolved in just a few hours!

Late at night on the 22nd, I finally got him on the telephone and he said that he was in Sholapur and would return the next day and attend to my problem.

The engineer finally landed up on the 23rd morning and discovered that everything was working alright and suggested that perhaps the router was to blame. He offered to procure a new router and disappeared. Late in the afternoon, he rang me up and asked me to switch on the router and presto, it started working. The problem was with the local distribution center and not with my router. It took them three days to find out this problem and solve it. In the meanwhile, the service center, just acted as post offices do and kept assuring me that my problem will be solved “soon”!

This is not the kind of customer service that I expect from the house of Tatas. I was among those that welcomed Tatas taking over VSNL and expected improvement in their services. I am sad to say that I was wrong.

Tags: Customer Service, Router, Tata Indicom India

I was complaining to a friend that I am not very lucky with raffles, lotteries, lucky-dips etc to get away from a persistent attempt by him to get me to buy a raffle ticket. His persistence paid off but, although I did not win, I got reflecting, and did some research on being unlucky. Here is what I found, an old email from another friend. I quote it in its entirety.

The loser’s guide to getting lucky
By Professor Richard Wiseman
University of Hertfordshire

Why do some people get all the luck while others never get the breaks they
deserve? A psychologist says he has discovered the answer. Ten years ago, I
set out to examine luck.
I wanted to know why some people are always in the right place at the right
time, while others consistently experience ill fortune.
I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt
consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and,
over the years, I have interviewed them, monitored their lives and had them
take part in experiments.

Professor Wiseman’s top tips

The results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into
the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for
much of their good and bad fortune.
Those who have succeeded at anything and don’t mention luck are kidding
themselves

Larry King
Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently
encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.
I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to
differences in their ability to spot such opportunities.
I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look
through it and tell me how many photographs were inside.

Professor Wiseman’s formula came too late for some…
I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying:
“Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250.”
This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more
than two inches high.
Anxiety
It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended
to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
Everything in life is luck

Donald Trump
Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety
disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.
As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking
for something else.
They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss
opportunities to make good friends.
They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job
advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
Self-fulfilling prophecies
Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there
rather than just what they are looking for.
Luck is believing you’re lucky

Tennessee Williams
My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via
four principles.
They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky
decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies
via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms
bad luck into good.
Towards the end of the work, I wondered whether these principles could be
used to create good luck.
I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises
designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person.
Dramatic results
These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their
intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.
I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have
of it

Thomas Jefferson
One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened.
The results were dramatic: 80% of people were now happier, more satisfied
with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.
The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had become lucky.
Finally, I had found the elusive “luck factor” .

Here are Professor Wiseman’s four top tips for becoming lucky:

Listen to your gut instincts – they are normally right.

Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine.

Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well.

Visualize yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone
call. Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tags: Bad luck, Good fortune, Luck

You have got to give it to our Babus. They burn with so much jealousy and malice that they are capable of causing harm to a genuine hero of our country. A man revered by thousands of people both in the armed forces and civilians. The hero himself was such a gentleman that this is the first time that the story has come out. He himself never made a fuss about it! What a man!

It was the First Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw Memorial Lecture on National Security: J&K Perspective on 16 Aug 2008, at the India International Centre, New Delhi, organised by the Conclave of Defence Services Veterans.

Lt. General (Retd) S. K. Sinha, till recently, the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, in his keynote address, mentioned that he met Field Marshal Manekshaw in 2007 when he was critically ill and on life support system in Wellington Military Hospital. A little earlier at the intervention of the then President, he had received over Rs. one crore, as arrears of pay of a Field Marshal for the past 35 years. At last the bureaucracy had relented and given him his dues, which had been denied to him for all these years!

The army had taken up the case in 1972 when he was promoted Field Marshal. When Lt Gen Sinha congratulated him for this, he smiled and said “A Babu came from Delhi to give me the cheque which I have sent to my bank. I am not sure if the cheque will be honoured!”

Shame on our Babus.

Tags: Field Marshal Manekshaw, Shabby treatment to a hero, The Indian Babu