INDYAKALEIDOSCOPE

A “spill my heart out” post after a very long time.

My state of mind or life pattern can be easily predicted from my blogging pattern. When things get too busy, when there is physical or mental stress, when situations are out of hand, blogging takes a back seat. No creative ideas come. I really admire the bloggers who manage to strike a balance between blogging and life, no matter whats going on around them. I sure have to few things to learn from them.

The store completed a 100 days during the last week of March. I think in these three months I have seen so much action on every front that I am longing for a holiday already.

Here is a post on the pre launch circus. The puja was organized on 14th December and the place was officially open for public on the 18th. Friends and family poured in everyday to congratulate and show their support. Within a few days the initial frenzy died down and things slowed down a bit, that’s when I started the decorathon and it went well for a few weeks.

Finding employees: I was very clear from the beginning that people employed at IK are not going to mainstream job seekers. I was introduced to RAPID (Rehabilitative Assistance for People In Distress) by a friend and I started interacting with them on a regular basis. (Ik’s association with RAPID is going to much more than just finding employees.) The women supported by RAPID are those who do not have anyone to turn to and they seek financial security. I needed an office assistant/store manager who could be trained to take care of the day to day activities of the store.

What I did not anticipate was that, when you are willing to help someone, it is equally important for that the person you are helping, willing to take your help. My first trainee was a young girl, just out of her teens. She was the eldest of the family and needed a job desperately to support her 4 member family. While briefing her about he duties, I mentioned that she will have to clean the store in case the housekeeping lady does not turn up. My philosophy “If I can do it, so can you”. She found it below her dignity and refused. I was left wondering, “whats wrong with these people, she is willing to let her family starve and rot in poverty but does not want to wash the bathroom once in a month?”

Moving on, the real trouble hit in the second and third month when there were a series of problems with the old place. The power, water, plumbing, pretty much everything needed attention. The wiring needed to be re done, the old electric meter replaced with the new one, the leakages fixes, the water tanks drained and cleaned, the motor repaired, the list went on and on… No one warned me these things would happen, how do you expect me to keep my cool. There were days when I felt suicidal :p serious!!!

The good part was, we did all our firsts We got a birthday return gifts order, a wedding return gifts order, a room makeover order and a lot more. We conducted our first event, an 8 day exhibit of painted pottery.

Day in and day out we get to meet crafters, decorators, craft lovers or just some lovely people at the IK store. All the trouble and hard work seems like it was worth it when we see the smiles on the people shopping at IK.

We have received emails, phone calls and personal messages asking us to restart the Decorathon, and we are going to do just that. Its going to rain Ideas soon

A big “Thank You” and a “Tight Hug” to everyone who were a part of this journey with us. I am not saying that its easy, but with all of you, its definitely “Worth it”

Much Love

Preethi Prabhu

It took one whole year for EBS to activate my payment gateway in my website. This is an email dated 17th April 2012, I sent to pretty much everyone I have ever contacted in EBS.
“all started in Feb 2011, when I decided to take my love for handicrafts to the next level and take it up full time. I wanted to take it one step at a time and had spoken to about 4 or 5 craft self help groups and planed to set up an online store to begin with. Since I would lose a lot of time registering a company(it would take at-least 3 – 6 months), getting all the necessary papers in place and then setting up a payment system, my good friend (copied in this email) suggested that his Company would develop the website for me and treat it like a part of their venture. Within a few days we had everything planned and were looking for a payment gateway system. Unfortunately for us, we were told that EBS was the best in the country (wonder how the worst would be) We paid the money during the end of march and were told that the whole process will take about a months time.
To cut a long story short, this is what happened. The IndyaKaleidoscope website was ready as promised and went online without the payment gateway. EBS was declared live in July 2011 but it never worked. The marketing plan never kicked off because the website was not ready to take payments. IndyaKaleidoscope became an independent company, but the status of EBS did not move. We found a retail space and started the retail store in December 2011, again the status of EBS did not move.
Not one person from EBS took the initiative to know why a customer was so happy. No amount of calling or sending emails made any difference to EBS employees. Promised call backs were never made, emails never answered, the only time someone replied was when I threatened to take legal action. My state of mind went from being nervous to anxious to angry to frustrated and now its indifference. This is how EBS supports someone who wanted to do something on her own?? I have invested the last penny of my savings into this venture, how am I supposed to react to the one year delay? Who is responsible for the losses for one whole year?? I wasnt expecting to make a fortune, just enough to take care of the expenses and re stock. What I was looking at is learning from the experience. Because of this uncertainty in generating an income through online sales, i have questioned myself a hundred times if I should go back to doing a job.
Last week, exactly after a year of paying for the service, I get a call saying the code is working, but for the previous application. March 2011 to April 2012 is the time taken for activating a service?? The reason why it hurts the most is because I used to be a customer support manager and I have high standards for customer service, its sad to experience such pathetic service. In between all of you, I think I am the one who is hanging my hand low with shame for still being associated with a company which does not know anything about “customer” or “service”.”

“Mr. Prabhu, Executive director of EBS replied back within 8 minutes of me sending the email”

extremely sorry for this unfortunate thing which I don’t have any explanation.

I’m prabhu co-founder and executive director of EBS.

can I have your contact number please??

The purpose of me asking this is not to give you any reasons but to apologise to you and to find out the possibilities of correcting ourselves.

While I understand your agony and irritation I would request you to give me an opportunity of me speaking to you once before you concluding your opinion on us.

Looking forward your response,

“This is the communication so far, I will keep posting the progress”