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How Vakil Housing also creates a ‘Wow’ experience for it’s clients.

Before even you even step into our office, you would be first greeted by the chirping sound of love birds as they cheerfully twitter away in the spacious menagerie we’ve placed just outside. And while you are are seated waiting for our Property Advisor to attend to you (which we ensure is as short as possible), we’ve installed two large aquariums, for you to enjoy, each ten feet in length. One containing fresh water fish the other sea water creatures (which includes Sea Anemone, Eels and a hermit crab that keeps changing it’s shell). Oh, getting to watch these fish at feeding time is a marvel on it’s own.

At reception we’ve placed a 6 feet tall board with our customer care policy printed, which boldly proclaims that when you send us an email, we respond within 24 hours (note: it’s not the next working day, but 24 hours flat from any day of the week). We ensure not a single client’s b’day or anniversary goes unwished and each card is signed by one of the Directors at Vakil Housing. Infact some of our clients may have even experienced a personal greeting, when some of the Vakil Housing gang go down to the client’s office/home, holding a cake in one hand and a bouquet in the other, and while he/she cuts the cake we sing and try to make his/her day as special as possible.

At Vakil Housing we try really hard to create a “Wow” experience for our customers. Hence, in a small way I can relate with Apple’s efforts to create an experience with their loyal customers who stood behind lines to purchase their very first iphone, as mentioned by Chanpory Rith here. Since, this took place not at their main flagship Apple Store, but at a smaller store within a mall, hence it must have been Apple’s policy to make customers as comfortable as possible at all their stores. Chanpory talks about getting free rounds of Starbucks Frappucino’s & cookies while waiting, Apple employees coming out and conducting quizes giving out Apple t-shirts as gifts as spot prizes. And then when they actually finally enter the store, Apple employees gather around them cheering and applauding them and finally as they leave the store a security officer escorts them to their car. A “Wow” experience indeed!

Confessions of 4 Taxi Drivers

Some of the most interesting people in the world you’ll find are those sitting behind the wheel of a Taxi.

Recently I was travelling back from Mumbai on a Jet Airway flight where I got the chance to watch Taxi Dreams being one of their inflight movie choices. Produced by the NBS, Taxi Dreams is a documentary of 4 New York City Taxi drivers, their lives, their families, their passengers, their dreams. It was beautiful. Two stories had a considerable impact on me.

First was am African cab driver, Kwame Fosu, who’s been away from his home and family for almost 16 years. SIXTEEN YEARS! That’s like a lifetime. What a sacrifice. And during these sixteen years, he had been home only four times and it’s only then did he get to hug and kiss his kids. Towards the end of the documentary, they showed how he has now collected enough to support a life for his family in New York and goes to receive them at Kennedy Airport.
Although his story has had a happy ending, that’s certainly not the case for majority of the Taxi Drivers in Dubai. Speak to any one of them and it’s exactly the thing you’ll here time and again. That they’ve come a long way from home. It’s been 5, 10 or 15 years. During which they’ve been home only once a year.

Then there was a fellow Indian Om Dutta Sharma, who was a lawyer back in India but he wasn’t granted a license to practice in USA. He shrugged his shoulders and gave driving a cab a try. He now has been doing it for 25 years. Now here’s the inspiring bit. Driving a Taxi he supported two of his sons to become Doctors while opening, running and till today maintaining a 130 student all girl school back in his village in India.
What a sense of responsibility! Truly nothing is impossible. Inspite of his relatively low salary, (he’s a cab driver for crying out loud), he saved enough to open and run a school for 130 empoverished (maybe even orphaned) girls, while completing his duty towards his children giving them the best education that the deserve. Gosh, I Loved every minute of this documentary!

There’s a lot more to the documentary than what I’ve described above, so do watch it if you get the chance.

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