Flipkart's apology a small step but major impact

Asking apology from someone for the inconvenience caused is a small step to resolve an issue going out of control but people are reluctant to do it. Some feel seeking apology as an insult to them but they forget the fact that, very few people have the courage to do it. And the ones who do it are very courageous, and people respect them for it.

Recently Flipkart also did a similar thing but in a personalized manner first of its kind at a scale like this. Filpkart launched “Big Billion Day” where by online shoppers were given amazing discounts on products purchased on that particular day. The launch was a hit among shoppers but only for few hours.

Flipkart website crashed twice during the day, things got over and in some situations the payment process was not getting through. There were issues in placing orders as well. Few lucky ones were able to get things at extremely discounted prices but others were left fuming.

Though Flipkart took all necessary precaution to make it a big hit but it failed to impress the visitors on the page. Lot of negative reviews was written about Flipkart in print and online media. But one step by Flipkart silenced all.

Flipkart dropped a personalized email to all visitors of the page who placed difficulty in placing order from its founders. Then they called all those people whose order had to be cancelled due to confusion or other reasons and steps were taken to refund the money to them at the earliest.

Years ago cadbury dairy milk chocolate also faced a similar outrage from masses when fungus was found in their chocolates. They roped in Mr. Amitabh Bachchan as the brand ambassador for cadbury dairy milk and campaign was carried out, where Mr. Amitabh Bachchan took viewers to the factory and showed them about the hygiene factor. And for the betterment of the product, chocolates were wrapped with additional foil other than the outer covering.

But seeking personal apology to everyone who has been hurt by the usage of product has been done only by Flipkart at a very large scale. We can just image about the volume of the email rolled assuming the fact about website being crashed twice due to high traffic volume.

I was also one of the visitors to the website and was very disturbed when my order was not processed but post receipt of the mail and very happy. And I order few things after that.

Unconditional love of parents

Nothing can replace the love of parents towards their kids in this world. Parents are the only people in the world who love their kids without any return. They take pain for their children with smiles which can’t be seen in other relationship. Seems like am also getting it, post attaining parenthood.

I have been travelling all alone since I came to Bangalore for higher studies. Mode of transport depends upon the availability of tickets. I prefer to travel by train but availability of tickets is a big issue. Because plans are made in very short span of time and the only option available then are bus, which has great connectivity.

For this vacation I was lucky to get train tickets to and fro. The moment I board train, worry meter of my parents are on alert. If I don’t call them, they will call me to check whether I have boarded the train or not? Till I reach home keep getting calls from them, about my whereabouts. To avoid some calls, I ask my dad to come and pick me from station.  But while coming back my dad will drop me to station and wait till train/ bus moves.

This time was also no different dad came to see me off at the railway station but just before the arrival of train dad made a statement which touched me, “If anyone offers you tea, coffee or biscuits, just refuse them. You want anything to eat or drink buy it yourself.” Dad knows I have been travelling all alone for quite some time and may be aware about these things but still he wanted to tell me.

This clearly shows his love towards and the fear which he has in his heart when he is sending me off. More than love it was his fear of my well-being that prompted him to say it to me.  I just loved it.

Fear is a form of love but the way dad hid his fear to instill courage and sensibility to face certain situation in me was amazing

A mother’s plight to save her unborn child

Attaining motherhood is the biggest joy in the life of a woman. She can go to any extend when it comes to the safety and security of her unborn child. At times pregnant ladies show extra ordinary courage to ensure the safety of kid in their womb. Yesterday one such story in newspaper touched my heart.

9 months pregnant women had to swim for 90 mins in river to reach another village. This lady comes from a very poor family, both her parents are daily laborers, who could hardly meet both ends after day’s long struggle.  Even the husband of this pregnant lady is not in a condition to take care of her. Hence she was staying with her parents, they stay in a village close to the banks of river krishna.

When this lady entered into her 9^th month, she requested her parents to shift her to hospital but parents ignored due to financial crunch. They assured her that when the time will come, they will take her to hospital. “The water level of river will not rise as monsoon this year may not be good”. But destiny has its own say to this prediction.

It rained heavily and the water level rose beyond expectation, as a result of which boatmen declined to ferry people from one side of the river to another. With every passing hour heartbeat of this lady was increasing and she decided to venture into the river, as staying back was risky. She will need medical support any time. When she asked her father to take her across the river, he told her to jump into the river and sail across, out of frustration. He couldn’t do much because the situation was not in his control.

Finally she decided to swim the river, her father and 2 more of her relative ventured into krishna river. They tied few pumpkins as life guard to ensure she floats in river. In this situation also, she swan half the way, post that she couldn’t swim any further. She had even consumed water also as her body was tired. Then one of her relative lifted her and covered the remaining distance.

After 90 mins they reached another village, villagers saw them coming and came to their help. They shouted at girl’s father for making her swim the river in this critical situation. But her father’s reply silenced them all, “what to do, we don’t have hospital in our village”.

Immediately she was taken to hospital when doctors declared both mother and baby are fine. All throughout her pregnancy she just had ragi roti with chutney. Her circumstances were like that. Now she is in hospital, hope she gets good food there.

I am running out of words to express my feeling towards the courageous task undertaken by this lady. It was highly risky as anything could have gone wrong at any point of time. But the courage and determination of the mother to bring here child to this world, kept her moving.  

Spicejet’s mid air Holi Party, what was it?

Whenever we use mediums of transport like cab, bus, train or flight, knowing or unknowing we give our safety in the hand of the people who will be operating these modes of transport. It is the responsibility of the drivers and pilots to ensure that the passengers are taken their destination with utmost care and concern with adequate safety measures.

Recently a video on youtube left me speechless, I saw that video 30 times but didn’t knew what was attracting me towards? It was the video of Spiecejet flight from Goa to Bangalore on 17^th March’14, where crew members celebrated holi mid air. They performed on the song “balam pichkari”. The most astonishing part of the video was, both pilots were part of the celebration. One of the pilots joined the crew to perform on the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2VrVivIxI

 

During this time the fight was on auto pilot, the duration of the celebration was 2.40 min but the risk undertaken by the pilots, crew members and the innocent passengers were very high. Anything could have happened during that time. Lucky passengers. Some passengers recorded the entire celebration on their smart phones and uploaded it on youtube. That’s how entire world came to know about it.

Post this incident both pilots have been placed under suspension and a show cause notice has been issued to Spicejet. News channels are airing this incident as hot cake and cashing on it. Have any one of us ever thought why this incident happened? I don’t think so. I feel this was marketing strategy which went horribly wrong.

Reasons to support my thought are as following.

1. Next couple of month’s flight will have low business so in order to attract customer Spicejet would have done it. Couple of airlines has reduced the air fare by 70%. Strategies are being made to retain and attract new customers.
2.  Are pilots and crew members authorized to perform any such celebration without informing their higher up? I don’t think so. If that would have been the case then cabin crew would have behaved with the passengers they feel like and pilots would have taken flights to the destination liked by them than the one assigned to them.
3. Pilots are not suppose to come out of the cockpit during the flight or allow people inside, then what forced /motivated them perform on the flight that too mid air? They had rehearsed for the performance.

Don’t know who did what but feel pity on the pilots who has lost their jobs. I am not justifying the act of pilots because they didn’t discharge their duty to the diligently so they should be punished. But want to know one thing “Did pilots performed out of their free will or they were forced to do it? Depending upon the answer only their punishment can be determined.

 

Selfish people on road

We have across reports in newspaper that accident victims were laying on road for long before help reached them. I used to wonder how people could do such things unless I experienced an incident on road very recently. 

I was travelling to office on bike other day, at a traffic junction a bike passed me. The pillion rider of the bike was wearing a laptop bag and it was open. Seems like in hurry he had forgotten to zip the bag. Couple of people would have seen him and his bag but nobody went and told him the same. Don’t know what stopped then from doing so? There was a lady on her scooty who was about to get struck to one of the pouches of the bag, even that didn’t deter her from informing this guy. She went ahead without any fuss.

When traffic moved a bit and I came close to this guy’s bike, I informed him that he has not zipped his bag. To which he politely thanked me and zipped his bag. I was feeling very happy that I helped someone. But their was one thing which was disturbing me, if I can do it, why can’t other? It was very small gesture. There was no money involved in it that people have to think twice about taking an initiative.

This shows how selfish people have become these days, if the same incident would have happened to them and nobody would have bothered to tell them, then they would have lost couple of valuable items from the bag. Post that they would have cribbed about it saying people are selfish these days but they should ask a question to themselves first, aren’t they selfish? A selfish person has no rights to call other person selfish.