Customer is God ?

Recently read this in the newspapers :

ICICI fined Rs. 50 lakh

The Delhi consumer commission fined the ICICI bank a whopping Rs. 50 lakh for employing "goons" to recover loan. It deplored the practice of the banks intimidating consumers to pay the instalments.

The commission also ordered the ICICI to pay Rs. 5 lakh to a consumer, who was mercilessly beaten up by the recovery agents. They snatched a loaned car from him.

When Consumer Satisfaction and repeat customers are considered to be the most important mantra of the modern management gurus, how can this bank do something like this ? This is not the first or last incident of ICICI doing something like this.

Juxtapose this to the quote (famously being displayed in different shops and institutions - including our Gudalur branch of the State Bank of India) of Mahatma Gandhi on Consumers :

"A Customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work.He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is a part of it.

We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so."

I was curious about this Gandhi quote on Consumers and the way modern business is exploiting this quote. I am sure Gandhi would not have imagined that his statement will be displayed prominently in a, say, reliance show room. I tend to think that he would have meant the whole concept of 'service' or 'seva' when he talked about consumers. That is, if at all he had said something like this.

I am embarrassed to see Gandhi's quote in big business or in a shopping mall. To assume that the modern business exists to provide 'seva' to the customers is too far fetched. When the motto is to suck up the 'fortune' available even 'at the bottom of the pyramid', customer service is just another tool to increase sales. It is not an attitude, as Gandhi would have articulated.

It is as good as saying, ICICI exists to facilitate our people buying cars (read the news item once again).

After due consideration, I came to the conclusion that this is just "Twisting things and putting words into Gandhi's mouth"

Finally, when we see some of the salesmen or service providers complaining that their customers ask too many questions, it may be better to refer them to this quote by Sam Walton :

"The customer has all the answers…
and, importantly, all the money…”

There is a cartoon that goes well with the news on ICICI bank :