THE CRAPBOOK

I just find poor to zero customer care everywhere in Bangalore.

Is it because I am at the wrong end of what customer service is all about?

Is it because I am a bad customer requesting service and not a customer getting bad service? 

Should I do a review on myself as a customer???????

I am confused !

This is the incident I had at a Phone Booth near my home. I made two calls to a local Tata indicom number and the bill came to 6 Rs. The lady charged me Rs10, on questioning on why she was charging more, she replied that she charge Rs2 extra for every call made to Tata Indicom. I was surprised and asked her it’s not reasonable, when the machine is charging only 6Rs. To which she got pissed off and asked me “I spent over 5k for this entire booth to be set up, will you give me that money???????”

 Man !!!!!

 What should I tell her????

I was a satisfied customer of Tata Indicom till I came to Bangalore. I wanted to take a new postpaid connection with Tata indicom and paid a visit to the nearest “Tata Indicom True Value Hub”. 

The ‘Hub’ was crowded and I quickly collected my token. The representative asked for my documents. I gave him my rental agreement copy to along with my pan card copy to him. He said he won’t accept rental agreements as the proof of residence. I challenged him by saying that the agreement is written on stamp paper which happen to be from the Government of Karnataka. So if he doesn’t accept it, it’s like he doesn’t accept the validity of the Government of Karnataka. My explanation doesn’t seem to help. I tried in layman terms. “My friend….. if I can give almost a lakh rupees to my house owner and the only thing which I can use to get it back is this sheet of paper, why don’t you accept that this paper is indeed valid” 

This didn’t seem to convince him either.  

The manager of the store happened to hear it and he intervened. He told me that according to TRAI act, the rental agreement has to be sealed by the Notary. I still don’t get it. May be I am bit ignorant on the changing rules, as far as I can remember you only need to give your rent receipt or rental agreement as proof of your temporary residence.

And still they won’t activate your postpaid account until they confirm your address!!!!!

My wife is a regular customer with NikNish, Forum, Bangalore. She loves the products being displayed at the store. One day she made a visit to the store at Forum, Bangalore with her Dad and Mom who came from home town to visit us. She wanted to show them around the store, which they liked instantly. She bought 2 artificial flowers. Once they  reached home, she found that 2 flowers were missing in one of the artificial flower bunch. She called Niknish, but no one picked up the phone.

So she went back to store on the next day( 04-oct-2007) to replace the damaged one. The salesman said the flowers were not missing when he sold it to me. She said it was, and that she don’t think that any customer will spend money and time all the way to the store to replace a flower if it was not damaged. To this answer he said it’s the responsibility of the customer to check whether the goods are good or not ( I am amazed by this answer, because it indirectly points out that they sell bad quality products and cheat the customer, if the customer is not careful). She asked him to take her to the store manager.

She met the store manager Mr **********, who told her that many customers come to Niknish everyday to replace things, but they won’t replace products.(I am surprised that we are not alone and many other customers had similar experiences like us )  Mr ******** was rude and threw out his business card at her and told her to complain to anybody she wants to.

 With the attitude that the store manager is showing, I am not surprised at the way the staff at Niknish behaved. 

More reviews to follow… from Tata Indicom to a PayPhone booth.

I happened to be an unfortunate customer of Hindustan Lever Pureit. I bought a Pureit Water purifier after I saw the advertisements on the TV. One of the prime reasons why I decided to buy the product was because it was from HLL. I called the customer care  at 1PM on Saturday 6^th of Oct 2007. The customer care representative greeted me and told me the product will be delivered in 2 working days. To my surprise their executive knocked my door in 2 hours !! 

I was happy with the prompt response and the quick delivery, well not for long….. As me and my wife was busy the whole week end we didn’t use the purifier for the two days. On Monday we noticed a gap in between the top and bottom tumblers, which we were concerned whether some insects will get through. I called the customer care on Monday to register a complaint and to get the purifier replaced.

The customer service executive promised me that it will inspected in two working days.

I waited for two days and no one turned up at my house. I called them again on Wednesday and they said the executive will be coming the next day. I called them on Thursday, Friday and on Saturday as well. The only answer the call center gave me is an ‘apology’ for what happened and a ‘promise’ that their agent will be coming to my house the next day.  The call centre also gave me the number of another person who happens to be in charge of sales in Bangalore. I called him and narrated my experience with him. He told me he will call me back and never did. I am surprised at the poor customer service that HLL is offering.

I agree that they have an 8AM-8PM call center and picks up calls at the second ring, but then they are of no help. I agree that that they delivered the product in record time, but the follow-up is less or zero percent.  I feel that once they got the customer’s hard earned money, they don’t care about the customer anymore. Now there is no money involved and their agents don’t bother coming to my house anymore.

It’s even more surprising that the nearest HLL pureit agent office is just half a km away from my house and they didn’t even bother to come to my place to get it replaced.  The relationship with the customer will not be over once the company gets the money; it should be a long and lasting one. I am sure I WOULD NOT recommend this product to any of my friends, relatives and my colleagues.  

 I have drafted a letter with my complaint to Customer care HLL!!  I hope I dont get the same reponse I got till now.

Note : They came to my house today after 8 days. The salesman told me that all Pureits have this defect. I appreciate their honesty !!!

I never wanted to write reviews in my blog. But many of the posts are indeed reviews on the various incidents that happened in my life. This is a bit different as this is my experience with some of the shops/outlets/products in Bangalore.