The idiom “Customer is the King” is a very common one, but is the customer really the King? Most of the time it turns out otherwise. The customer has to run around begging for proper service and this is for private companies, if you fall into the hands of any public company God alone can save you!!
I had such an experience recently with BSNL when I subscribed to their CDMA based internet connection which they call the ‘NIC Card’. On Aug 2nd I went into their Customer Service Center in NR Colony, filled in the application, submitted the required documents and paid in the security deposit and got the device (Huawei EC325). I was told the number would be activated by Aug 4th (Monday). Monday came and went so did Tuesday, nothing happened, I was still unable to connect and no official communication from they about any blockers.
So on Wednesday (Aug 6th) I went to their office at 10am (which is their opening time for such queries), 5 mins….10 mins…20 mins…30 mins…still the concerned person had not yet come to the office. Finally one of the other official told me to give my contact details and told me they would get back to me.
Finally at around 12pm I got a call from the CSC office telling me that there was a problem with the exchange and they would have to reconfigure the device so I was asked to get the device to their office at 10am on Thurday. So next day I reach their office at 10am sharp…and the same story continues…the person who had called me was not going to be coming to office that day and the next in charge who would look into this arrived only at around 10:35. The official told me that there was a mistake in the number alloted, instead of the number number ending with 89 they had feeded it as 59. Oh! Come on…so the official had a long talk with the various dept’s and finally confirmed that the device would be reconfigure to have the number ending with 59.
Once reconfigured, there was no network available hence was told it would work, as it was already 11:30am and I had to get to my office, I accepted their word for it and went. Tried it later that night; it was still not connecting. So went to their CSC office once again at 10am…and as usual waited for the customary 30 minutes, after which the main official came, checked and tried various things and finally told me that there might be some malfunction in the device and it was best for me to cancel the connection and get a new one.
I squarely refused to do so, since there was a three month commitment period and if I ask for disconnection it would mean that it was my fault and I would have to end up paying the three months rental. So I gave them two options, either repair the existing device or if they feel it is not possible to do so they could give me a new device which they could without my involvement that is internally closing and opening a new connection. They went for the first option and told me that they would send the device to the Whitefield office to check and asked me to come on Tuesday (12th Aug).
On Tuesday….I wait for the mandatory half an hour and then they tell me that they are yet to send it to Whitefield. I ask them when I should come back for which I was told that they would call back when it is done. Days pass by and no progress, since I was free on Aug 16th (Saturday) I went into their office and enquired again, and they tell me it has still not been sent to Whitefield. W
Now this was getting a bit too much even for my level of patience, so I told them to check the device again and I sat along with them to see. They again started calling up different department, on one such call they mentioned the ESN number to the other dept, this is when I realised that they had the ESN entered wrongly into their system as well, and not just the phone number. Instead of the ESN number ending with 50D, they had entered it was 500. I told them this, they were really happy at my discovery and the other dept quickly changed the ESN number in their records to the correct one. Tried connecting again….still not happening.
Was this device faulty or something…well I was not the one to give up after all this…so asked them to reconfigure the device again, this is when I noticed that when reconfiguring the device earlier they had changed it from ending with ‘89′ to ‘99′, instead of ‘59′. This was the epitome of mistakes. They finally changed it under my hawk eyes and when they tried to reconnect…viola the connection happened. Half a month of patience, numerous rounds to their office and hours of waiting had finally ended. They thanked me for helping out and as I left I had just one sentence for them “Thank me now, but when the bill for the month comes I will be back again, since I have not had service for half the month (2nd Aug to 16th Aug) and you will have to deduct that.”
Last week my BSNL CDMA based internet connection (NIC Card) was giving very slow speeds of around 1KBps. So I needed to call the BSNL people to register a complaint. Here are the telephone numbers that I came across (for my future reference):
