Back ground : Suggestions made in the one day Conference on Public Sector Telecom Services & its future held on 14th at BTH, Ernakulam. Participants were representatives from BSNL management, BSNL Unions and Associations and Unions and Officers Associations of various Public Sector and social organisations. All of them emphasised. the need for strengthening the BSNL. One of the deficiency of the present day organisation noted by many was the lack of marketing drive from BSNL. Though various categories of personnel in BSNL are working in different areas such as installation, maintenance, service delivery, accounts, planning, management etc, the need for every body to be familiar with the BSNL products and services was felt by the participants. By and large, the pro-market forces, the right wing media campaign in favour of private operators and when encountered with specifics, BSNL personnel are unable to clear the doubts raised by the customers. The old Govt Department Official attitude of the BSNL organisation also is attributed to this ignorance of its own services and products. If BSNL personnel are aware of the attributes of BSNL products, then it is very easy to reach the present as well as prospective customers. Unless the BSNL personnel themselves are not familiar with the services, how can the public be expected of it. BSNL personnel, irrespective of the divergent nature of day to day duties, can and are expected to be aware of the basic attributes of the services and to guide and canvas the public they come in contact. This will be the first step of unleashing a powerful marketing and public awareness campaign on BSNL products and services. Hence the suggestion to have a crash program of familiarisation workshops for the entire BSNL personnel.
Previous model :
All the concepts applied in this proposal has already shown results in CTO, Cochin-682016. There, all the personnel were imparted such training at the time of conversion into CSC working between 0800 am to 0800 pm (which, it is reported, is still unique in the whole of BSNL, to have a CSC working and giving all services including cash collection and new mobile connections for such a long time, despite the Corporate Office directive to have such CSCs). Every body, including even, operative staff, technical maintenance staff and support staff who never dared to do work of facing the customers at public counter came forward to meet the public, give them proper guidance, give them the service they need and to attain the best customer satisfaction ever possible.Basic premises adopted and Concepts applied:
BSNL products are of superior quality than that of private operators. The deficiency is in service delivery and after sale support. Therefore, Best available marketing strategy is to improve the service delivery and after sales support, for which maximum BSNL personnel are to be deployed near to the customer, without compromising on the work they do at present. Such an initiative, doing away with the compartmentalisation of departments and sections, will help in meeting the sudden rush at public counters and extending service to the customers without delay and attaining maximum customer satisfaction with the help of staff from other sections or works, their normally assigned works being carried out during the periods when there is no rush at public counter.
The best marketing effort is to create public awareness on the services and products of BSNL.
To open up ones knowledge is the basic instinct of any human being. If every BSNL employee, irrespective of their area and nature of work, is made aware of the attributes and conditions of BSNL products, they will be the best campaigners and marketing personnel for BSNL products. Thus huge BSNL HR can be made a valuable asset than a liability while, at the same time, utilising their services effectively for providing quality service support instead of outsourcing.Outsourcing is not the best business model to be followed. Most of those who outsource their activities do so out of compulsions, to get the work done even when they do not have time to get HR recruited and fine tuned to the work or due to short term nature of the work or on considerations of cost. While doing so, they are fully aware that they are compromising on the quality. Examples are the Telecom Equipment suppliers. They retain inexperienced Indian operators for installation, maintenance etc of their equipments at a risk of even losing further business, as there is no other way out. But why should BSNL having quality manpower, often idling, for which they cannot be blamed, due to conventional services becoming outdated, should outsource their work to inexperienced operators at the risk of customer dissatisfaction and consequently loosing the business.
A little bit of motivation will do wonders with the existing HR. The awareness on the threats faced by BSNL itself shall be a really motivating factor. Lack of initiatives is the only factor that contributes to the existing inertia and lethargy.
Economic gain is not the only motivating factor.
Much, can be accomplished within the limitations and constraints of the available organisational frame work and authority, including building up pressure for bettering the organisational structure.
The program shall be implemented keeping in view the following points :Entire workers are to be covered in workshops conducted at three levels.
All Unions and Associations in BSNL are to be involved.
SSA level Faculty of 32 will include 16 nominated by Unions and Associations and 16 nominated by Management.
Commercial Officers and Accounts Officers of the concerned subject will form the Faculty Team for the SSA level workshops.
They shall sit together in groups and prepare the material with all relevant informations on the respective products and services which shall be supplied to the participants to be used for next level workshops.
SSA Faculties (Participants of the SSA level workshop) will lead the workshops at Area level and Area Faculties (Participants of the Area level workshops) will lead the workshop at Unit Level.
Faculty team at both levels will be the resource persons for the future and will be guiding the people in the field and at customer interface points, in case of any doubt arising for them at any time.
A Unit may be defined as an operative unit/section/subdivision/Division or combination of them according to geographical proximity the staff strength together which shall not be less than 50 and not more than 100.
Four rounds of workshops are required. With the first round 100% participats will become familiar with some of the services and atleast 25% will become familiar with bulk of the services. The faculty members will atleast become thorough with all the services. With subsequent 3 rounds at an intervel of 3 months all the personnel will become familiar with the services and their attributes. Subsequent rounds are beneficial to update the changes occured after the previous workshop.
Subsequent to the first year, the faculty team at each level will be empowered to update their information and convey the changes alone to the next level down below, which means only the unit level need meet whenever there is a change in the procedures or substantial changes in products/services.
Crash training program at a glance.
Discription SSA Level Area Level Unit Level.
Number of days 2 2 1
Choice of days Week days/working day Weekdays/working day Sunday/Holiday.
Number of sessions 4 4 4
Faculty 8 4 4
Participants 32 (SSA Faculty) 2 each from units All of the unit.
Inauguration PGMT GM AM/DE
Introduction GM (D) SSA F/M from Union. Area F/M from Union.
Land Line Service (Faculty) 2 COs and 2 AOs fm Areas SSA F/Member Area F/M
IMPCS Service(Faculty)SDE B/E, F/E, AO(Mob) SSA F/Member Area F/M
VAS & Leased Lines (Faculty)SDE BB, I/N, AO VAS SSA F/Member Area F/M
Business Dev/Marketing DGM (BD) & team SSA F/Member Area F/M
No of workshop days 2 12 50
Participants/workshop 50 70 60
Content for the Workshops.
Inaugural Session : 1 hour. Discussions/presentations on the background and the requirement of this program (Positive and motivating responses).
Head of the Unit. 20 minutes
Leaders of Unions & Associations : 5 to 10 minutes (Proportionate to their membership)
(Each of the following sessions shall have 3 hours divided and handled by Faculty members, each presenting their subject for half the period and answering to the questions for the remaining)
Session I Landline/WLL related products/Services – charges, conditions, qualities, facilities, benefits etc.
Session II Mobile related products/Services – charges, packages,conditions, qualities, facilities, benefits etc.
Session III Value added services (L/L,BB,Webhosting memmory etc ) - charges, conditions, qualities, facilities, benefits etc.
Session IV SSA Organisatin, Marketing, Service delivery,Service support, Customer care, bill
collection.
Concluding Session : 1 Hour for evaluation & Planning for the next level of workshops (Scheduling - Date and Venue - & Faculty Identification)
Calendar for the workshops.
Formation of core group : 1st day of the first week.
Core Group home work : 10 days
SSA Level workshops : : 4th and 5th day of Second week.
Area Level workshops : : 3rd week.
Unit level workshops : 4th, 5th & 6th weeks.
Staggering is suggested to have to one member each of core team in the area level workshops and Core team or SSA level Faculty in Unit level workshops. From the Second round onwards this need not be insisted and hence the entire course can be completed in three weeks by each concerned faculty managing the workshop in respective levels and areas.
Financial Analysis.
Total cost estimated comes to 21.16 lakhs of which only Rs. 4.25 lakh is to be spent in cash or kind for working lunch and refreshments, documents to be supplied and fuel for travel. All the rest is the salary component of core team and faculty members, existing space and infrastructure and good will which is only an effective utilisation and additional benefits accrued out of the existing resources or those available from outside.
Cost Benefit Analysis.
Benefits accrued are :
1.All the BSNL personnel in Ernakulam SSA gets familiarised with all the products and services of BSNL.
2.All of them become aware of the attributes of BSNL products and services so that they are able to guide the existing as well as prospective customers and undertake a purposeful campaign in favour of BSNL products and services.
3.Hence forth BSNL owns campaigners and marketing personnel in number, in capability, and in sincerity unmatched by any of its competitors, among the whole lot of customers themselves.
4.All of them can be made marketing personnel for any newly introduced packages as well, within days, with the additional informations passed on to them through a crash program which can be completed in a week's time or even within a day by resorting to other direct communication means, in emergency, which is possible only because they are tuned to the basic informations through this crash program.
5.They can also be used as service support personnel to reach them near to the customer through appropriate plans or schemes. Such schemes may include New connections of all varieties, cash collection, distribution of forms, passage of information, dues collection etc.6.This will go a long way in arresting the present downward trend in market share and revenue share.
7.The benefit to cost ratio, in terms of revenue, number of connections etc will be unimaginably high.
8.Staff productivity improves.
9.This crash training program with the involvement of all sections and the participatory discussions becomes the best ever staff motivation drive.
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BSNL officers and workers have to be given full details of the BSNL services. At present they are not providing the required consultancy to the prospective customer, which is in fact the marketing efforts required from the BSNL.
My experience.
I went to customer service centre at Kalathilparamb road for an internet connection. They guided me to Housing board building centre, where they registered me for Broach Band Connection and asked me to contact officer at Udayamperoor Exchange. The JTO there informed me that at present there is waiting list and shortage of equipments or capacity and I will be provided with the connection in my due turn. After waiting for 4 months, I approached Asianet. During the 4 months, since internet was not available I had to send my daughter for a course paying a fee of Rs.18000/-, which other wise was available on net. Asianet immediately gave me a 10 hours pack at a cost of Rs.100 for a dialup connection. The shameful fact is that this connection is provided through my BSNL connection of 04842792980.
BSNL shall learn lessons from this and do something urgent to end the torture the customers are facing due to the lethargy on the part of BSNL.
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