The customer is supposed to be at a God level for businesses, but time and again they, especially the big ones have proven that while they are ready to talk about how important their customer is, doesn’t mean they will act the same too.
The latest one to be added in this category would be UrbanClap’s CEO Abhiraj Bhal who seemed to have accidentally marked a complaining customer on an email that told his team to ignore the latter person’s queries.
His email said,
“Please ignore him completely. Nobody should answer his queries.”
The complaint was about an UbanClap supplied technician had apparently not been able to fix his AC and that his attempts to contact him in order for him to complete his job were not successful.
The complainant is an employee at OYO rooms, Rakesh Verma and had stated in his complaint that he had to move out of his current residence and thus needed to get the AC fixed otherwise he will not be able to get his security deposit back.
What Is The Issue?
Rakesh Verma according to sources had been in contact with UrbanClap regarding this issue for about 50 or so days that from early March till now when all this exchange eventually reached the CEO.
It seems though that while trying to address his team, Bhal accidentally hit ‘reply all’ on the mail and the customer also got the message that the CEO gave to his team, which was to ignore Verma and not engage in any more talks with him.
Verma immediately uploaded a screenshot of the mail on his social media and pointed out UrbanClap on their CEO’s callous words towards a customer’s complaint.
He uploaded another screenshot of a previous mail that he had sent to UrbanClap explaining the situation in detail.
Verma’s friend had earlier posted about this issue on Reddit where it went viral on which Rakesh further added all that had happened to him including Bhal contacting the former’s CEO and threatening to sue if he didn’t keep calm about the situation.
Abhiraj as per reports commented on this controversy by commented on the main Reddit post that,
He then further tweeted about how he takes responsibility for the matter and while try to be better.
As per latest updates, Rakesh has informed that UrbanClap is ready to take responsibility by posting this on his Twitter,
“We’re ready to get your AC replaced if required or can pay you for all the charges that’d incur to get the AC repaired’ – Said the @urbanclap officials today. They seem to have realized their mistake and are ready to take responsibility for it along with the steps to correct it.”
Read More: Myths About The Indian Startup Scenario: It Isn’t As Hunky Dory As It Looks
Really Sad Behaviour By Startups
This entire controversy also brought forward other allegedly disgruntled former employees of UrbanClap who talked about how bad of a place UrbanClap is to work at.
But this definitely shines a light on startups as it is not just UrbanClap which has done this but other new businesses have also been accused of postponing complaints, not responding and more.
Startups, especially in India became popular especially due to how approachable and easy to work they were for the common people.
Even if the customer is in the wrong, there could have been better ways to handle the matter I believe.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: VICE, DailyHunt, LatestLY
Other Recommendations:
http://edtimes.in/2017/11/can-we-trust-indian-startups-anymore-with-our-salaries/
