“Hi, I am John, welcome to Tata Bye Bye Telecom Services. How can I help you?”
“My login ID is Ting Tong, T-I-N-G, T-O-N-G, Ting Tong. I’m calling because my broadband service is not working.”
“Certainly sir, could you tell me your login ID?”
“I just told you my login ID. It is Ting Tong.”
“Yes sir, Ching Tong.”
“TING Tong! TING TONG! Tee as in Ta-ta!”
“Oh, okay, could you spell it out for me?”
Now this has been the routine I have been following thrice a day for the past five days. My broadband connection has been on the blink and the only way I can get things going is to call up the call center. My service provider has this state-of-the-art call center that hires state-of-the-art morons to chew my brains as many times a day as I had want it chewed.
Usually, some guy with a fancy chewing gum accent, eats up three minutes trying to get my login ID. Then, they tell me what I have already told them – that my account is active, but the service isn’t working, and that their engineers were supposed to fix it in 24 hours … and that was 48 hours ago.
“The issue is open and we are working on it – we assure you that we will resolve it within 24 hours.”
“That’s what you told me yesterday and day before!”
“We understand sir…”
“No, you don’t you &#^!^!&&!(_~!”
“I must protest sir, please don’t raise your voice… otherwise I will hang up.”
Well, I had love to hang you up, that’s for sure.
On the fifth day, the conversation went like this (after the usual initial repartee):
“Let me talk to your supervisor.”
“I am sorry you can only talk to me.”
“Okay give me the name and number of your Area Manager.”
“I am sorry we don’t have that information.’
“Who can resolve my issues?”
“The engineer.”
“So let me talk to the engineer then.”
“Sorry you can’t sir. You can only talk to us.”
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. Kindly disconnect my broadband connection. What is the procedure for that?”
“I will have to forward a complaint …”
“So do it. I am going to switch to another service provider.”
That apparently did the trick. Within an hour, I got a phone call from the marketing department, who not only understood my problem, but gave me their number in case of future problems. Then they gave me the cell-phone number of the Area Manager, who sent an engineer within 30 minutes to fix the problem.
And that was that.
Now why are companies hiding behind anonymous call centre operatives? They are taking our money and providing a product or service, which from time to time conks off. And while the call centre is a great idea for online/tele support for routine stuff, it sucks when it comes to solving real problems. Response times are terrible, and the consumer is left completely stranded up a creek without a paddle.
Whatever happened to the sales guy who sold you stuff, and gave you his number to sort out problems in case his back-end team couldn’t sort it out?
The world is turning into one big call center and I am not liking it one bit. And I am not liking it because it seems to me that in an effort to pursue volume business, companies are making a big compromise on quality of service.
Last night, Ruckus Patel (a close friend), was over for dinner and he told me about the new DHL ad campaign … apparently it revolves around the fact their call centre works just fine.
Now there’s a good reason to send a courier … just to see if their call centre really works so fine that they built an ad campaign around it…
Are you the guy who wrote the Good Morning Pune and Spice Boy columns for the Times of India? Great to see you in the blogsphere!
Hey Sanjay!
If they could solve problems, they would be called “Problem Solved Here” not “Call Sent Here”
Call Centre has become “All Centre”. Who ever cannot find a job move to it. Don’t worry about the customer’s emotions only care about his motions i.e more he calls you, more you can show your usefulness to the company.
You say Call centre i say All centre