When Service Suffers
- Economy, Investments -
By Digoy Fernandez
THE news that a leading international bank — OK, its Citi — will knock off more than 50,000 jobs did not excite the markets, but it raises the specter of diminishing service in a service-oriented industry. I remember all too vividly arguing with a very rude Citi rep a few years ago — probably one from their call center — and recounting this to one of my classmates who was a former high ranking executive of the bank. He agreed that the service of the bank had gone down tremendously. The net effect of all this is that, after I mentioned the incident to my family and friends, they all resolved to bring their banking business elsewhere.
We talk about outsourcing here in the country as if it will be a panacea for all our economic woes. True, employment in this sector is expected to be more stable than most as international companies shed staff and outsource certain functions to firms like those found in this country. But outsourcing can only go so far. The news today about additional woes in Quantas — an airline that had once been proud of its service history — as yet another plane suffered from a failure in one of its systems. The sudden increase in incidents in this airline are said to be traceable to its having outsourced the maintenance function. This is not a wrong move, per se, but an airline certainly cannot take chances that something will go terribly wrong with one of its airplanes as it coasts at 30,000 feet above sea level.
The TV program Air Crash Investigation has highlighted the danger to a plane if one little part gives way, or if a plane passes cursory inspection only to fall from the sky because of something the mechanic forgot to do. One airline that they featured had taken shortcuts in their maintenance schedule by maximizing the length of time between mandatory service schedules, and an air crash was the result. That is why I look apprehensively at any airline that publishes many flights on any given day, and, after considering the number of aircraft that they have available for flight, come to the conclusion that someone is short-circuiting maintenance schedules.
