Hindustan Pencils, taking its customer satisfaction policy seriously, sends 5 sharpeners meant for left-handed to a junior KG girl in Thane, who was struggling with the conventional ones
There are the right-handed, the majority, the left-handed, the minority, and the ambidextrous, the rare ones. And, needless to say, in India, most products are made such that they favour the majority. However, Thane resident Shweta Singh, 31, whose four-and-a-half-year-old daughter is left-handed, has managed to bend the trend.
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Thane resident Isha Singh after her mother wrote to them
Specially for you
Last week, Singh wrote to Hindustan Pencils Pvt Ltd, the manufacturer of the popular Nataraj and Apsara stationery products, asking it to take into consideration the trouble that left-handed people face while using such products. The company immediately took Singh's problem into account and, within a week, had five sharpeners meant for the left-handed delivered to her house for little Isha.
Sharpeners for left-handed people that Hindustan Pencils
"Left-handed people face a lot of issues - writing in ruled notebooks from left to right, using scissors, writing on whiteboards, etc," Singh told mid-day, whose daughter studies in junior KG. "Abroad, there are sharpeners for left-handed people, but these cost Rs 600-700 apiece. Hindustan Pencils was great at responding to the situation.
Sanjay Tiwari, group marketing manager, Hindustan Pencils
"It used to really upset my daughter earlier that she couldn't sharpen her pencils along with her classmates; it's a big deal for toddlers. Now, she is happy and can use the sharpener without difficulty." As an afterthought, she added: "The entire system should be changed for left-handers."
'Will make more'
"Generally, a sharpener needs to be held in the left hand (for right-handed people) and the pencil in the right and sharpened in a clockwise direction," said Sanjay Tiwari, group marketing manager, Hindustan Pencils.
"In India, most are right-handed, which is why Shweta Singh's query was an unusual one, and we immediately took it into account. Luckily, our R&D department, which does some exports, had some sample sharpeners for left-handed people. We called our factory in Umargaon and had them deliver five sharpeners to us, which we then couriered to the customer."
When asked whether the company would be taking this example into account while manufacturing its products in the future, Tiwari added: "For us, every customer is special. But because we don't make these at a commercial level yet, we took care of Isha's problem in this way. However, we will make more soon. We had one project earlier for left-handed people but that was taking time. We now plan to accelerate that project, and these products will be available in the market very soon."