Take up your rights, legally

Manav Bajaj 

Consumer rights advisers help consumers safeguard their interests and protect their rights. They render services required to achieve the objective — from raising a complaint to getting the due compensation. 

To take on these challenges with all legalities in place, one needs to be equipped with the relevant skills as well as academic qualifications. 

One also needs to be extremely careful while writing and interpreting minute details of the case. The information gathered should be precise and accurately shared with seniors, lawyer-in-charge, governing councils and media professionals. 

Even the slightest error can change the course of the case. A consumer rights’ adviser has to be extremely attentive while attending to the tasks and responsibilities of this job.

Scope

Although a career as a consumer rights adviser or consultant has been a popular profession in the developed world for decades, it is still considered a novel career choice in India. Thus the growth scope in this field is very vast. The demand for qualified professionals exceeds their supply. 

With high penetration of smartphones and information-exchange revolution through social media channels, especially WhatsApp, consumers have become empowered and are demanding their rights. Subsequently, numbers of complaints are also increasing rapidly with a spurt in India’s e-commerce sector. It is a segment that still has to be holistically covered in the existing consumer protection law.     

Role and responsibilities

With the changing dynamics in economic and legal frameworks of the country, the roles and responsibilities of consumer rights advisers and consultants are also changing. Regularly interacting with customers through phones or personal visits, reporting and assessing their problems, maintaining data and records, compiling statistics, studying the cases and exchanging the accurate information with lawyers and liaising with other relevant organisations, are some of the core responsibilities of consumer rights’ advisers in a modern set-up. 

Qualifications and skills required

As one has to interact with people from diverse backgrounds and experiences, the temperament of a consumer rights adviser matters a lot in this profession. One should be good at communication, confident while expressing views and opinions sharing facts, and intelligent in making negotiations with the second party. 

Although educational qualifications are important, these play a second lead in this industry. Preferably, law graduates and candidates from psychology, public administration streams, are more sought-after as compared to those from other streams. 

However, doors are open to anyone who has good  inter-personal skills, besides having substantial knowledge of the consumer protection law of the country. 

Also, prior experience in the similar capacity always gives an extra edge to start the career in this field. 

New opportunities beckon 

After the recent reforms in the fiscal and industrial policies and  introduction of GST, there has been an increase in demand for consumer rights adviser. Now, openings for the advisers are not only restricted to public departments, trading standards departments, accreditation agencies and government watchdog organisations, but many consumer grievances forums and consumer rights platforms in the private sector seek their services. Corporate houses and multi-national companies, which have dedicated consumer-complaint departments, are always in the need of smart and qualified professionals to save their brand image through zero dissonance policy. 

— The writer is CEO, Consumer Sathi