It is often said that the customer is always right, and that customer satisfaction and delight should be the prime objective of every marketer. This seems all the more important in the context of services marketing. This article raises some dilemmas that services marketers are often faced with, regarding the extent to which they can go to please a customer. This is taken up by presenting an imaginary context. The way such a situation could be responded to, is explained in brief towards the end of the article.

For Mala, this was to be one of her toughest days at Zodiac. With her experience in the industry of over three years, she has seldom been put in such a difficult situation to negotiate customer care with company policy. She cursed what on earth made her to move from the sales counter to her colleague's service counter on that wretched day.

Mala Srivastava (26 yrs) works as a customer care executive in the franchisee division of Zodiac. Zodiac is a part of the biggest private integrated telecom conglomerate, Lunar Enterprises. Lunar provides a range of telecom services, which include cellular, basic, Internet and the recently introduced national long-distance calls. Lunar also manufactures and exports telephone terminals and cordless phones. Apart from being the largest manufacturer of telephone instruments in India, it is also the first company to export its products to the US.

Zodiac is the leading cellular service provider, with an all-India footprint covering 23 telecom circles in the country. It has over 25 million satisfied customers. It offers a wide variety of value-added services and 24-hour customer care, catering to a variety of customer needs and business requirements. Zodiac has grown by leaps and bounds over the years by acquiring some of the other players in the market. Zodiac is known for its clear vision, policy guidelines and practices, which are considered to be better than those of its major competitors.

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