Is being good becoming a bad thing?
The world today seems to be moving towards an era where ethics no longer matter. Being good is no longer essential to succeed in the world. We don’t have to look far to see this in action with Trump very much in our face.
Is this the end of the world as we know it? Can we turn things around? If so, we first need to understand the nature of the beast. A good place to start might be the corporate world that spawned Trump. This is a world where the absence of morality is often a key factor of success.
The prime example of this in the Indian context is the medical industry who sell essential drugs at prices which are several times their actual cost. This puts them out of reach for India’s poor, and has resulted in tragic deaths for simple illnesses.
The drug industry has no qualms about these avoidable deaths because they are making big money. They also know we have no option but to go to them for essential medicines.
Fortunately, all may not be lost. I believe the government in the Indian state of Rajasthan has opened drug stores where generic drugs are available at actual prices. Hopefully the rest of India follows their lead.
Unfortunately, the drug industry is not the only one who is making money by being bad. The service industry is another whose tactics may not result in death. But they operate with same absence of morality. This can be seen in India’s internet arena where the leader Airtel seems to be reveling in a tactic of getting customers to pay more to avoid being hassled.
I have been observing Airtel closely for a while as they are far more devious than the drug companies. And I believe that the first step to stopping such amoral companies is understanding what makes them tick.
Badwill or the ‘I Win, You Lose’ approach
Airtel is a company who seems to have crookedness inbuilt into their genes. Most of India got to see their true colours when they started charging mobile customers twice for the same data. They actually insisted on being paid for VOIP calls that customers were making using data they had already paid for. Thankfully, the Indian Government ruled against them, and Airtel came off with mud on their face in that net neutrality debacle.
Personally, I have had two bad experiences with Airtel. A few years ago, I relocated to the south Indian city where I currently live. I wanted a good broadband service, and was recommended Airtel for their reliable customer support.
Initially, everything went well and Airtel would respond and fix any issue with minimal downtime. Then things began to go bad. Looking back after my two experiences with Airtel, I can see certain common threads running through their approach to customers.Basically they increase their monthly fee marginally without notice and then engage in a stressful back and forth with customers who question it.
This tactic is simple but surprisingly effective. It’s based on a shrewd insight that the majority of customers will rather pay up than face the hassle of making repeated calls and emails to contest a small increase in fees.
It’s my educated guess that they have a corporate policy to extract more business from every customer this way. They may even have a set of guidelines for this process, which could be something along these lines.
- Don’t hassle customers during their initial (honeymoon) year
- Increase the bill in small increments
- Make false claims for late payments
- Put the onus on the customer to prove payment was not late
- Settle the first false late claim quickly to soothe customer
- Repeat tactic with more false claim for late payments
- Inform customers they were having a temporary discount
- Confuse customers by saying the govt has increased service charges
- Backdate these increased service charges before the applicable date
- If customers notice this, pretend it was a mistake
- Delay replies to email complaints from customers
- Do whatever it takes to get that extra ₹100 from the customer
For customers like me who prefer to deal with honest, upfront organisations, the Airtel experience was very painful. The whole emailing, phoning and complaining was just a lot of unnecessary stress.
So I hit the ESC button, and switched to BSNL, the state-run internet provider. BSNL was refreshingly honest after my experience with the deceitful Airtel. Their customer service was slower but that was something I could live with unlike the stress of Airtel’s constant attempt to rip me off.
I left BSNL after a couple of years as they were too slow to keep with the new arrivals in the market. As in literally slow at just 3Mbps. ACT who I now use offers three or four times that speed and data for a lesser price.
My second experience with Airtel was when my sister subscribed to Airtel last year. Exactly a year later, I see Airtel meticulously playing the same game with my sister of marginal increase in bill and infuriating stalling tactics. She doesn’t want the stress and would prefer to pay up, but I find Airtel too clever by half and have taken up cudgels on her behalf.
Airtel’s ‘I Win, You Lose’ strategy has generated a tremendous amount of badwill for the company. But with a home-broadband base of around 15 million customers, all those ₹100s add up. Even if 10% of their customers pay up, it’s ₹150,000,000 (15 crores) extra every year. It’s definitely a winning strategy for Airtel.
So as of now, all that accumulated badwill doesn’t seem to bother Airtel. Does it mean that the age old business principle of earning goodwill is no longer true? Oddly enough, Reliance, one of India’s controversial companies seems to be the one who is seeking to prove that goodwill works better.
Goodwill or the ‘I Win, You Win’ approach
Reliance’s Jio mobile network service went to customers in India with an approach that is diametrically the opposite of Airtel’s. Instead of charging extra for mobile VOIP calls, they offered calls to anywhere in India, for free. They did this by innovatively converting all calls to voice-over LTE calls. They also offered a free 3-month Welcome Offer with a humungous 4GB of data a day, which was later extended for another three months with a reduced but still substantial 1GB/day.
A lot of people expected Jio to have trouble in convincing people to try their service because they come with a bit of baggage. Jio is owned by the Mukesh Ambani of Reliance, a powerful and rich business group with a history of controversial deals.
But none of this will matter to customers if they get value for their money. Though Jio took a risk by being only compatible with 4G VoLTE phones, it seems to have paid off. Customers don’t really care how the call happens as long as it works.
Most people whom I know who have taken Jio’s ongoing free offer are happy with the service, and will probably become loyal and profitable customers.
Jio’s popularity shows there is a huge latent antipathy for Airtel because of their accumulated badwill. Innovation, reasonable pricing, transparent service and above all, goodwill, make for a winning combination that Jio can ride to capture India’s booming internet industry.
Personally, I have been using Jio’s mobile service for nearly two months, and it’s as good as any other mobile service while being far more cost effective. I can’t say if it’s just a honeymoon period, but at the moment I will be happy to sign up for their paid service without any hesitation.
In short, I will be rooting for Jio. They win, I win.
Can ‘Good’ make a comeback?
Coming back to an individual level, I don’t think people like to be bad or be seen as being bad. Like Jio, if they can survive by being good, they may definitely try taking that path.
That is the key. If ethics has to regain its importance, people need to be able to have a decent life by being good. They must be able to afford essential medicines, have a roof over their heads, food on the table, basic necessities like transport, water, electricity, and a good balance of work and leisure.
If people can have these basics, then being good may no longer be a liability.
