Chief Operating Officer / India
Completion meant different things to the system and customer
- Operating organisation
- 204 colleagues
- Five heads across customer contact and appointment coordination
- Annual operating expense
- ₹48 crore
- FY2026–27; ₹4.2 crore systems programme separately approved
- Service career
- 28 years
- Coordination assistant through operating leadership
Decisions & consequences
01Reopening the records behind a resolution figure I had approved
In 2019 our selected service review contained 120 contacts. Ninety-six records had a closed status, and I accepted the resulting eighty-per-cent figure as resolution. Meenakshi examined the evidence behind those records and found that twelve had been transferred and twelve still awaited a callback. The original system count was accurate, but twenty-four closed records did not support the customer outcome I had attributed to them.
Seventy-two of the 120 contacts had evidence of resolution, or sixty per cent within that review. This was neither a company-wide rate nor a claim about resolution on the first contact. The service sponsor wanted to retain the earlier figure and describe the remaining actions as routine follow-up. Meenakshi argued that the label made an unresolved responsibility disappear from the management account. I accepted her challenge and corrected the interpretation rather than defend the approved report.
We reopened the twenty-four records and used ₹28 lakh over eight weeks to revise the review process. The work clarified what evidence supported resolution and how transfers and callbacks remained visible. It did not itself repair equipment or establish that every reopened request was subsequently resolved. Clients retained those underlying decisions and obligations. Agents needed a way to record an unfinished action without being penalised for making the report less flattering.
The trade-off was a lower supported result in the selected review and additional operating work. The bounded outcome was a corrected report and a clearer account of the next responsibility. I had to explain why an orderly internal status had been allowed to stand for a broader customer outcome. The case changed the question I wanted management to ask: after our own conversation ends, what evidence shows that the customer’s need is met, and if it is not, who has accepted the action that remains? That question is harder to answer than a closure count, but it gives the service a more useful account of its responsibility.
Changing coverage after the daily average concealed recurring morning pressure
In 2023 a daily staffing comparison appeared sufficient for the incoming work. Teams nevertheless described recurring pressure during the morning, with customers waiting while capacity later in the day could not retrospectively serve them. I asked for a ten-day observation of arrival patterns and available coverage rather than treat the reports as isolated exceptions or an invitation to work faster.
The observation showed a repeated concentration of demand within the morning period. The aggregate comparison had smoothed away the timing relationship that mattered to the service. The planning sponsor argued that the daily total remained the appropriate resource measure. Team supervisors wanted the shape of arrivals and the skills available at the relevant time considered together. I supported a bounded coverage pilot instead of declaring that either the total staffing level or individual effort explained every difficulty.
We used ₹36 lakh over ten weeks to revise coverage, coordinate with clients and test the changed arrangement. People and contractual owners retained their responsibilities for shifts and service terms. The case does not prescribe a staffing formula, assert a permanent waiting-time reduction or claim improved satisfaction. The operating result was a pilot informed by the time pattern of work, with its limits stated before a wider decision.
The trade-off was changing familiar working arrangements and accepting a more detailed planning account than a daily average. We did not assume that adding staff everywhere would be the right response, or that redistributing hours could solve every skill and duration constraint. I wanted management to see why capacity available later could not answer a promise made earlier in the day. The review made the recurring pressure a planning question with an owner, rather than an exception teams were expected to absorb repeatedly. A future extension would still need evidence from the pilot and a separate decision about its consequences for colleagues and clients.
Correcting summaries that turned a conditional request into confirmation
In 2025 a service-quality review examined forty summaries of customer requests. Thirty-one preserved the meaning of the conversation. Nine changed it, including records where a conditional appointment preference had been written as if the customer had confirmed the arrangement. The next person acting on the record could therefore make a decision based on the agent’s stronger interpretation rather than the customer’s actual request.
The operational sponsor wanted a shorter template to make records more consistent. Meenakshi argued that consistency of format would not by itself preserve meaning. I supported a review centred on the condition that mattered to the next action. A longer account could still misstate that condition, and a concise account could preserve it accurately. Qualified language colleagues and the relevant client owners needed to be involved where the meaning or contractual consequence was uncertain.
We corrected the nine records before further reliance and used ₹31 lakh over nine weeks to revise the quality process. The thirty-one faithful summaries remained distinct from the nine requiring correction. We did not claim that the review established customer consent, proved a general error rate or improved satisfaction across all contacts. The result was a bounded correction and a changed method for examining whether the service record preserved the request it was meant to carry.
The trade-off was additional review work and a challenge to the assumption that standard wording automatically creates a reliable handover. The customer should not have to discover that a preference has become a promise only when somebody acts on it. I wanted the operating account to preserve the difference before it travelled further. The case reinforced the earlier resolution lesson from another direction: an internal record is useful when it carries the meaning and responsibility needed by the next owner, not simply when it is complete enough for the system to accept it.