Sunday, November 21, 2010

Service (?) in Disguise !

These days i have been thinking on the different services available around us for a common man. I wonder if these are really genuine services. One such service that i have used many a times is the online movie ticket booking. This service comes with a fancy term "convenience fee". Is this just a convenience for the customers alone ? It makes their jobs organized and easier as well isn't it. Also shouldn't that be part of service provided to customers. Setting up an online system wouldn't cost the theater huge money i believe.... and for the rest of his life he gets to charge it as convenience fee from the customer !!!

Another service that i came across was the online funds transfer facility provided by most of the banks these days. The NEFT transaction is charged by couple of banks. I know of SBI and Citibank at-least. They charge a fee of 5.00 INR for every NEFT transaction. why should the banks charge this fee in the first place ? Are they encouraging people to use the paper cheques more than the online paper-less transaction ?
ICICI and HSBC as of now do not have any such charges.(at least till the last transfer i am not aware of any such charges)

Another innovative way of charging customers as part of service is the Airtel's Customer care desk. If you happen to reach the customer care officer, your call will be charged with some nominal amount (guess it is 50ps for 3 minutes). Though this looks like a small value, imagine the number of customers calling and speaking to the customer care executive and that in turn being charged !! what a way to generate revenue. So the monthly rentals do not cover up customer care charges !!

Service providers are really doing a good job at innovating different methods to provide service with a fee !
so are these really services to the customer ???