Without a line of interaction

In Service Marketing there’s something called ‘a line of interaction’. If we take the example of a restaurant let’s say, there can be numerous lines of interaction. A line of interaction basically means point where a part of the service comes into direct contact with the customer, or in plain motherhood statement it’s the ‘moment of truth’. The waiter is one, the menu is another, the food is the next, and the bill that comes towards the end is also a line of interaction.

Now most people say and I’m sure even you’ll agree that lines of interaction are extremely essential to the service organisation’s success.

Now let’s turn the tables on this statement and look at it from the other way around. There’s this hotel in Korea, the name of which I forgot, has defied this whole idea of line of interaction. The hotel has virtually scrapped all the lines of interaction which one might call essential.

If you want to book a room, you call the number, and the voice on the other side is an AVR (automated voice response system). This means there’s a computer on the other end to take your call rather than a real person, so the first line of interaction is compromised. The AVR gives you an automatically generated code, which you note down and is a reference for the room you booked in the hotel. You drive your way down to the hotel, go to the basement where again there’s no security guard at the gates, since the gates are automatic. You key in the code given at the gate, and this is where you officially check into the hotel. You go ahead and park your car specifically at the slot allotted to you, and to make sure you find it, the lights of that slot start blinking. So line of interaction (security guards) compromised again.

Then you go up the lift, into your room, and done! Not a single human line of interaction in the entire process. You finish all your naughty business and get out. The payment is made by an escrow so the hotel never comes to know the real identity of the person. Dainty no? Now who told a line of interaction is essential?

The tale of the 2 cab drivers

The final few days in Dubai are like the first few days in Dubai. There's a renewed spirit in the air and all that aura crap! You tend to look at things quite differently. Suddenly you start looking at people as if they are not 'just there', but 'why' they are 'there'? Which brings us to the point of the discussion: the two cab drivers.

Apparently, we were on our way to a little bit of outing late in the evening. It had been a long time since we could call ourselves as 'free' in real sense, and we wanted to freak out sort of. So we called for Sudhir – the guy who transports people to their destinations at half of what it would cost in a normal cab. We waited for 2 hours for that dimwit to arrive, and he didn't as luck would have it.

So finally we decided to get into a legal cab. We got hold of some guy, who was last in the line of cabs, but somehow got to us first and we sat in without realising that its ethically wrong to do that, and realised only after there was a barrage of words (abusive quite naturally) hurling back and forth between the cab driver and the rest of the cab drivers.

Of course, nobody can sue him or something, since there's no written rule, but whatever! The point is he broke an understanding in the community (ever seen how the rickshaw drivers at a rickshaw stand collectively decide who goes first and all? So this was like one of those times when a rickshaw driver broke the norm.)

And to clarify, we live in International City (though there's nothing so international about it; except the fact that you've got buildings named after countries and flags of different colours fluttering on the road dividers) and International City is quite far from the main city (i.e. Dubai). And even cab drivers do have this tendency to get lost in the pursuit of getting to the main land given the fact that there are so many 'round-abouts'. (round-abouts are pesky little places and are the 'only' places where you can take a U-turn on the road or move into some other direction; else the road runs straight as long as it can)

So this guy messed up in taking round-abouts (which means we travelled more distance since the road runs straight) and the bill was shot up by 100%.! And the fact that he had messed up was quite apparent on his face, since he had stopped blabbering something about we being 'sharif' people which he had begun right from the moment we got into the cab.

So what do we do? It said 90 on the cab meter while ideally it shouldn't have gone more than 45 dhs (dirhams – UAE currency)! So we zonked that guy's brain out regarding the road signs and the fact that the bill doubled. We eventually only paid 45 dhs, since that's what it ideally costs. Somehow I was happy about what happened to the cab driver since the way he bypassed those dutiful and ethical cab drivers and got to us first, this was what he rightfully deserved in the end.

Now the fun part starts when we are to go back to International City. For the ride back home, we found a cab dude from Pakistan. Very soft spoken, polite, but as most cab drivers, he too was quite a jabberwocky. And he talked about his experience when some white men hopped into his cab, all drunk, started abusing his nation and the people, and then declined even to pay for the transport. The complete opposite of what we had experienced while leaving International City.

And now starts the mindless introspection and comparison of the two drivers (when you're into something called an MBA, you become so increasingly analytical, that even cab drivers become a case study for you!) Right, so back to the cab drivers! Now firstly, both the cab drivers did what they had to, to earn money. Some use more aggressive and unaccepted ways (aka Cab driver 1) while some use the rightful path (aka Cab driver 2). And yet both get screwed in the end (Cab driver 1 got only 45 dhs instead of 90 cause he screwed up in the round-abouts, and cab driver 2 didn't get the pay from those 'white men' cause they were all drunk)

So who stands to gain in this whole 'ethical' and 'non-ethical' debate? I think none of them!

Now if you put the philosophical jargons aside and come to economics, there too, this behaviour has a lot to offer. Both of the drivers have come here to earn a living. If I am right, they fly back to their nations maybe once in a year, and drive cabs almost throughout the year. They must be living in a 1 room apartment or a 2 room apartment that must be shared by 6-7 people, since there's no chance that they can afford to rent an apartment alone.

Just think, they meet their families only 15 times or so during their lifetime, they have a living space of less than 7 cubic feet for the whole year, and their work space is again less than 7 cubic feet. With virtually no emotional outlet, the passengers are quite naturally a preferred source of venting their feelings.

Isn't it ironic? They give out their feelings to the people whom they might never see again in life! The only thing that holds them back from settling back in their country along with their family is the exchange rate of 1dhs = Rs.12.33

Such is the power the money wields on them. They hate the whites for being too discriminative when it comes to skin; they hate the fellow workers because they add competition and make them earn lesser; they hate their life since they can't be nearer to their families.

Yet, they deliver value at sustained levels; yet they are always soft spoken; yet they are always at the service of the customers, and yet they eventually stand to lose, whether they use ethical or unethical norms!