Focus on Consumer Rights

"Will

most of the dotcoms fail?" asked the gentleman sitting next to me in a

seminar in Delhi recently. I tried my best to explain how the situation was

changing, but he refused to be convinced. He said that whether it’s dotcom or

CRM, it depends on telephone connectivity for the transaction to take place and

on the quality of product or service delivered for the transaction to



happen again.

And both these things are absent in

India. To a great extent, the success or failure of not just the dotcoms, but

even the ISPs, the ASPs, the CRMs and the ERPs, the call centres and WAP

services, depend on the communications infrastructure. Technologies offer a

range of solutions today. An open mind, understanding of technology, and a

liberal but user-oriented approach are needed to take communications to masses.

Time is not on our side and we must

move quickly. Countries like Thailand, Malaysia and China did not take decades

to build a good infrastructure. They did it in a few years.

A more significant negative factor,

which has been overshadowed under technology, but is working against

communications-enabled service providers, is the buyers’ mindset. Indian

consumers, today, just do not believe the claims of vendors–be it cassettes or

a music system–unless they physically touch and see the product. Go to any

shop, and you will see the buyer ensuring that the cassette is not damaged or

old, and plays on both sides. Total absence of consumer rights has resulted in

the Indian buyer being so wary. New technologies have come but the Indian vendor’s

mentality to palm off defective products to its buyers or not to attend to his

grievances unless forced has not changed. That’s why there are so many

instances where aggrieved buyers of products and services over the Net are left

high and dry. Try to approach an ISP with any problem that you are facing, and

you will know.

Traditional Indian business has been

known to be not too consumer-oriented, but one hopes that the new-generation

communications companies, including the ISPs and the dotcoms, will take lead in

the area of consumer rights. And thereby, set examples for others too.

There are other issues also, which will have a bearing

on the fate of communications-based services in the country, but the top

priority should be these two issues. Otherwise end consumers will lose hope.

Ibrahim Ahmad