Blunders in those Investment Proof Submission Systems

Once I had an interesting incident with an investment proof submission system (say RIPSS - Random Investment Proof Submission System) in one of my organizations. I uploaded only one investment proof (life insurance) and clicked on “Confirm”. After that I realized that I couldn’t add any more proofs. I wrote to RIPSS people and they replied that it won’t be possible to edit it again. We had a series of email threads with the same outcome that it couldn’t be edited again. I felt that it must be a startup company but when I did more research on the company, I found that RIPSS was from a very well established and reputed company. It was also one of the leaders in providing payroll processing systems. I decided to explore a few more investment proof submission systems and most of them had similar problems. January has been one of the most horrible months for salaried people because of investment proof related stress; I thought to highlight a few problems in those “wonderful” systems like RIPSS.

Usability testing: What’s that?

RIPSS had Login ID as some numeric ID which had no connection with the employee ID or the official Email ID and obviously we were expected to remember it. It was called by a fancy name – “PIN” whereas most of the people who understand PIN will know that PIN stands for personal identification number generally referred for 4 - 6 digits passwords. Password had restriction of maximum 8 characters when you sign up or generate a new password whereas on the sign in page there was no limit for number of characters you enter. This was the most stupid system I have seen which puts limit on maximum number of characters on password and not minimum number of characters. Normally all banking systems have at least 8 characters restriction on passwords. It is good that they didn’t believe in usability testing otherwise the real users might have given such a terrifying feedback that they would have shutdown their business. I remember, once I was leading software development for a tool which was for a US based client (a government organization) where there was a specific requirement to follow Usability Testing Guidelines and we had to work on those. For one of the web-based product we had to create a blind and visually impaired friendly web-interface.

Document submission: a nail in the coffin

To upload documents RIPSS gave an ID for each document and we were supposed to upload documents corresponding to that ID. Only god knows what that ID was or we were supposed to note it down. Ideally it should mention the type of document along with ID. We were supposed to upload all documents at once as a zip file and not one by one and save and there was a limit of 20MB on that compressed file size. In normal situations you will have different cycles for all your policies etc. so you would like to upload whenever it is renewed. It expected us to collect everything and once you are sure, upload all documents in a single zip file. If you make one mistake, you are gone forever. As a manager we always talk about risk mitigation and other big terms such as plan B but RIPSS guys were perhaps much more “focused”. The system was so rigid that there was no scope for modification even before the deadline. I have seen many other document submission systems where you upload all your documents and later attach it to each entry one by one for example, expense reports. There was a “wonderful” help document which was around 100 pages with low quality screenshots and I guess we were expected to read it. I read it completely but unfortunately, like other help documents, it was not of any help. I still don’t understand why it is so difficult to get a high quality screenshot or prepare a document which is not composed of raster graphics. RIPSS showed a button which read “Submit” and it was not known whether it was a confirmation for the documents we uploaded just now or it was the final submit button. One of my colleagues thought, it is an era of Internet of Things (IoT) so whatever receipt we upload, the system will automatically process the document and fetch the amount. It will also automatically connect to the corresponding investment proof. He was obviously disappointed to see that we haven’t advanced so much in IoT yet and we had to enter everything manually in the system and attach each receipt to corresponding document.

The era of personalized communication

There was no customer care phone number as they had mentioned in one of their presentations that they were very modern company and they believed in only emails. Email reply took minimum of 24 hours. There was no way to escalate your email in case of it not being resolved. Also, the people there didn’t know how to communicate. They call us by name for example, “Hi Ravindra”. No “Mr.” or Title used at all. Even if they used “Mr.” I am sure they would have called me “Mr. Ravindra” instead of “Mr. Pushker”. Technically, “Mr. Pushker” won’t be correct either; it has to be “Dr. Pushker”. I remember once I told a receptionist at my hostel in Dublin to call me Pushker instead of Ravindra and she said, “Sir, I can’t call you Pushker because if I have to, I will have to call you Mr. Pushker because it’s your last name.” I know some people will think that I am a paranoid but the point here is that you can’t take anything for granted as far as customers are concerned. A small mistake and you will lose your one customer forever. If you don’t know something don’t hesitate to ask but don’t presume anything without any solid evidence. In case of any doubt, be as formal as possible. These guys also forgot to understand that I was their customer not their friend and we were in a business relationship. They call you by name because they are taught to write “personalized” email but when the world is moving towards personalized genomics, personalized medicine or personalized customer care, they don’t care to tell their names or designation. For them, they are just “RIPSS Global” so you don’t know whom to hold responsible. How can you expect personalization from only one side?

From data privacy to data piracy

Can you expect data privacy from the systems like RIPSS? Have you wondered how valuable your information could be? In some of the fields we were supposed to enter how much the premium was and how much the life cover was. I understand that if the life cover is not more than ten times of premium paid then it is not eligible for tax exemption under section 80C. But why in the world you need information about when I bought that policy for the first time? I mean it is none of your business. Wait a minute, it is indeed their business. How much money can they make by doing analytics on that! They can recommend new insurance products based on the information. They can use it as an advertising platform. I know that there is something called non-discloser agreement or confidentiality agreement but we are sure that most of us have gone through situations like you apply for a credit card in company 1 and the next day you would start getting calls from company 2 and 3. In the name of digitization, how much information is being exposed to third parties? That could be one of the reasons that many companies prefer to manage their payroll systems internally.

The second B in B2B stands for end-customers

The model for the RIPSS like systems is B2B so end customers are the last priority. In B2B relations, one or few end-customers unsatisfied, doesn’t matter because you have already got your share for the whole year or probably the next few years. But most people forget that the second B of B2B is made up of those end-customers. Most people also forget that there is always something called renewal of the service. Making new customers is not as challenging as retaining them. But perhaps some of these systems don’t believe in retaining customers instead keep acquiring new customers at the cost of old ones. That’s the principle these systems work with. I also understand that there are not many choices. If you compare some of the best systems, all of them have most of the obvious flaws and you are forced to pick one. But I feel that these systems are supposed to make employees’ life easier and if it doesn’t happen, perhaps we need to find an alternative.

I wonder if systems like RIPSS don’t consider their customers seriously their existence will be RIP (Rest in Peace).

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my current or previous employers. RIPSS is a completely fictional name and any resemblance to actual system, live or dead, is entirely coincidental.