15/06/09, I’ll certainly not forget this. Not for the fact that I had my Business Activity but for the reason that on 17 customer complaints that I took as the CRM (Customer Relationships Manager) I wrote this date and the details of the technicians to whom they had been forwarded to. I don’t believe that the fact I was the CRM of a company that has a known name (though not big!). I shared this post with my Buddy Eesha Gokhale and trust me it was a good experience.
Lets run through the whole of it. Morning 8:30 am, Manohar Kamath Sir walked in talked to us about business and Business managers and then the fun began. The ground rules were simple go out, find a job, work till 4pm and bring back your earnings. The Catch! We were not supposed to use our institute name, the course we were pursuing and above all we were not to spend a single rupee throughout the whole day. We had to travel to Aundh (from SIMS) and back but by taking lifts!
So we set out and within sometime a sweet lady gave us lift till a mid point on the way. As we stepped in she asked us if we were from SIMS and we had nothing to say. Next up a gentleman stopped for us centre of the road and after listening to our made up story (we were aspiring MBA students who had signed up for a study group which had given this assignment). The gentleman turned out to be a professor teaching at IndSearch, an MBA himself he had specialised in HR. He then gave us a few basic tips on what to do and what not to do.
Finally we reached Aundh and our efforts started. Tried our luck in travel agencies, IIT preparatory classes, fashion boutiques, electrical stores, Idea, Vodafone, Nokia, Mom and me and what not. At some places the people asked us if we were from Symbiosis and we just smiled back. We were given a chance for a summer placement but not a work till 4 pm. Then we just saw Eureka Forbes, my buddy was not very hopeful, but then we tried. What did we have to lose? And the moment we realised that they were hearing we just settled down. They tried persuading us that they don’t have anything for us and we said we’ll create an opportunity for us and a benefit for you.
Finally their CRM was on a leave and we got the job. With full zest and energy 
we started taking calls and promising those annoyed customers that they were of prime importance and we would get their problems sorted as soon as possible. We knew nothing about their models, technical details but our confidence in the talk was as if we were a trained employees. By the end of the day we were swift and had almost perfected the task of taking details and even calling up technicians and giving them details and time slots.
The supervisor there told us about what the problems were, we gathered all that we could from him and all that around us. We got so involved, that in one of the calls when I overheard a conversation at the customer end about the end of warranty, I was prompt to suggest them an AMC (Additional Maintainence Cover). It was all fun, the people there had started to believe that we would be coming back tomorrow as well. But then when it came to collecting our Remuneration, the person in charge there put his hands up saying that he didn’t have the authority to pay us any amount. After a lot of negotiation, he finally agreed to give us a letter on their letter head saying that the worth of our work was Rs. 300 but since he doesn’t have the authority he can’t pay us.
That is how it was. Then again it was our way back to the institute hitch hiking but it was a great experience. Certainly one worth remembering!
