Telecom companies have evolved multifarious ways and means to loot us. The fact remains that India has become a free ground for entrenched corporate interests; weak regulation, nil consumer feedback, poor implementation of the existing laws and the tendency of the companies to focus wholeheartedly on the bottom line by hook or crook.

While it is perfectly justifiable for any business enterprise to make profits, the companies seem to rely only on one dictum. “The ends matter, means don’t”. In this scenario, we as consumers are mere fodders for their extravaganzas. Over and above the fancy salaries and huge spread outs, these companies are forgetting to place the customer first.

1) The billing related complaints top the number of complaints.

This is because this is the most tangible aspect of the company’s efficiency. Month after month, notice that how they charge for “misscellaneous expenses”, “plan charges”, “charges for Calling Line Indentification ( which is infact free for them anyway) and what not. The worst hit is the prepaid segment- where in, debarring the time when the promotional offers are not running, half of the talk time value of the card is taken upfront. Obviously, there is no break up of the costs apart from the taxes and “administrative costs”. It is surprsing that despite the technology for e recharges, which would amount to significant cost savings, it isn’t promoted. So, one has to pay for the inefficiencies of these companies- with the cost of the logistics and the distribution costs including the paltry dealer’s margin.

2)You cannot hold any company responsible for call drops or the way they bill you.

Traditionally, they charge you on per minute basis. Even though you may talk for,say 20 seconds, you have to pay for the unused 40 seconds. I took up the matter with the call centre people. Their response was, take it or leave it. It is the company’s policy and one cannot do anything about it. Well, as a customer, you have the right to be heard. When you saw the advertisment, the star couple or the star batsman didn’t even utter a word about how you are going to be billed for the calls. There is no respite for us in the coming future.The only way out is the per second billing which is more transparent.

3)Different plans seek to confuse the consumer rather than make any sense.

In the hey days when I started tracking this industry out of sheer curiousity, it was easy to follow because there weren’t many players. However, as the number of subscribers grew, it became increasingly clear that different segments of the market were required to be approached differently. Thereafter started a deluge of the plans. One after the other- it was tough to find out the hidden costs. TRAI wanted to inject some sense in the madness- they failed to evolve any reliable methodology for the consumers to choose minus the fine print.

4)Roaming rates are among the highest for the GSM players. Till to date, they haven’t evolved a transparent mechanism to calculate the costs involved and communicating the same to the consumers. Reliance and now Tata’s are trying to bring down the roaming costs. Yet, I feel, there is much to be done.

5)Have you ever tried to get your complaints sorted out through the customer care?

There have been many instances of the readers penning down their experiences with the customer care- which is designed to be more opaque than transparent. It takes a lot of cajoling or even threats to make them work. Geting the information is an exercise in patience and ingenuity. Barely out of college and underpaid, with absolutely no loyalty towards the company they are working for, it reflects in their attitude and they way they present themselves.

Of course, getting a new phone connection comes with absolutely no gurantee that it would work the way it has been advertised. For example, as a Reliance customer,I cannot exchange SMS’s with a BSNL customer; nor the picture messages come through. It wasn’t mentioned in the agreement I signed on with the company about the deficiency in the service and their lack of interconnect agreements. Similarly, BSNL’s SMS has become the butt of jokes- once sent, forget about the delivery in that instant. Wait for the festive season and you would find that the networks have jammed with the messages- clearly the opertors are not prepared to handle that load.

I salute the Indian customer’s resilience.

This can be only changed if you stand up for your rights and demand what is due to you and what you have paid for.  

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Tags: BSNL, GSM, India, Prepaid, Reliance, SMS, Tata, TRAI