The telecom operators don’t get it, do they?

Coming at the heels of a frustrated customer of Hutch there’s another personal experience with Reliance.

Reliance Info is one of the largest pan India CDMA players. Yet, they don’t gurantee adequate customer service. I had a Reliance handset which I got frozen because I wasn’t using it. True to their style, they sent across a bill for consolidated 4 months. Imagine, during this period, I didn’t even switch it on!

When I had been to the Reliance Web World Express, there is saw frustrated customers with their billing complaints. I did manage to get some insider information- Reliance is facing a major hassle with billing systems. What system they operate on or why they haven’t upgraded it is beyond me. During a half hour interval that I was there, there were atleast 4 disconnections from frustrated customers. 4 disconnections.

I only highlight this so that the real nature of the “telecom boom” is apparent to the world. It beats the common sense to spend such a huge amount in marketing but customers have no choice except to stick on to extremely degraded customer care.

In another blood curdling incident, a long standing customer of Reliance was abused because he dared to correct the Reliance Web World staff. He could have created a mayhem himself but realising his duties as a concerned citizen he sought to complain and put up his complaint online.

Here iswhat he has to say:

I am a customer of Rel. Info. for past 2 years and have 6 landlines and mobiles for past 2 years. Throughout that period I have recommended your services to near and dear ones.

I went there to get my POST PAID mobile connection migrated into “LIFETIME PREPAID”. On expressing my desire I was handed over a form and asked to deposit a sum of 991 Rs. which I did. While filling up the form (and seeing the postpaid-plans) I queried that the form is for LIFE TIME PREPAID, at which the lady exploded. She openly said there is nothing called lifetime prepaid thing for postpaid subscribers.

I told her you have to inform me about it… she started blabbering and made fun of my know-how in front of all customers and staff for 5-10 minutes.

This is what they do to a long standing customer in their outlets. Who would want to get insulted by this kind of a staff? Reliance surely needs to buckle up. Or else, they would get panned out in no time.

I highlighted these two incidents because it makes no sense to keep quiet about them. The Tribune regularly carries out customer complaints against non payment of refunds or illegal dues on the post paid bills. Now if they care to look online too and see for themselves- there is a huge customer base that simply doesn’t have the “delight” of using a mobile telephone. Or even broadband.

I would be glad if any of the Reliance’s official spokesperson clarified. I would carry their version too here.

Last year saw flurry of actvity to allow “incoming for life”.
The first salve was fired up by Tata’s with their offer of free incoming for 2 years. Bundled with a crappy handset, it did notch up some aquisitions. The exact quantum of the cusotmers isn’t known but Tata officials were grinning from ear to ear. So it might have well been worthwhile.

Airtel introduced the prepaid voucher, thus raising the stakes for others to follow. Within a span of two weeks, all others had “me too” schemes. The last (and laggard as usual) was BSNL. It was indeed surprising that it took it’s CMD to announce the scheme. It just shows the kind of importance that they have attached to it.

Now, how do they plan to make money? Simple. They would get the call termination charges from other networks. Albeit they are planning for a low margins, high volume game. However, the outgoing call charges are nearly double of other packages; simply because they have no other means to recoup their investments.

Why the “incoming for life” then? Scaling up customers for spectrum allocation. Simple. Though Tata’s were motivated by absolutely nothing to show off in their accounts. It was then vehemently opposed by COAI (the trade body of cellular operators) who termed it “ILLEGAL”! Well, why then they have eaten their own words? It’s called as “foot in the mouth disease”. According to TRAI’s norms, this scheme is valid for 3 months. Tata’s are nearing the end of the tenure for the same. The game has just started off for GSM fellows.

High outgoing call charges are seriously a dampener. This defeats the purpose of “low paying customer”, or affordable mobile. Still, as companies go on an advertising binge, they violate the advertising norms without disclosing the intended costs or the churn on the acquired customers if they fail to recharge.

Haven’t we seen this happening before?

If we need proof enough about the growing market of GSM mobiles, you just have to check out the various “plans”. Each one seems to be tempting than the other; all kinds of charges thrown in; free this and free that; daily rentals; the billing cycles;monthly plans; monthly plan rentals; phew!

My travails started when my trusty Nokia handset went kaput. I believe, my dog had a role to play in it. Specially when he just revels in chewing it to bits. It outlived all the horrors subjected to it and one fine day it just went dead like a BSNL landline. After frantic efforts, I managed to get it powered on and retrieve my address book. That was when the whole issue came in focus.

For long, I have bet on CDMA; never faced any issue of congestion or call drops. It is one of the cheapest mode of communication while roaming. Thanks to Reliance’s widespread reach. Plus of course, rock bottom tariffs and simplistic plans. I was a satisfied customer. However, it was a BIG issue when the GSM phones started their marketing onslaught. Ring tones have been a BIG hit in recent times. Reliance favoured poorly. Then finding a Reliance customer was statistically insignificant. Almost everyone I knew has GSM phones. Another factor that weighed in prominently was the free SMS. For a nominal amount, I could go on a messaging binge. SMS definitely is expensive in Reliance.

I mustered up enough courage to explore the various possibilities. Airtel has a crappy office in my city; minimal attention to details and none of the “executives” seemed to be interested in spelling out plans. I gave it up in disgust. Hutch has excellent showromm ambience with pink splashed over. I have no idea as to why are they obessed with the pink tongued pug. However, I wasn’t happy with the way the plans were communicated. The person telling me didn’t have any clear idea as to help me to choose plans according to my needs. Hutch seems to have a lot of hidden charges; postpaid to prepaid migration is a pain in the wrong place. Hutch too ran out of contention.

Argubaly, BSNL has the cheapest GSM service. However, I am not a brave person; I decided not to explore the government service at all. There are enough stories doing the rounds that SMS’s move at snail’s pace. Clearly, BSNL is a company stepped back in time.

Finally, I settled in for Spice. Perhaps, it was the discounted “corporate” scheme which made calling within the group free of cost. Further, discounted calling rates to other mobiles and SMS pack. It comes with all the frills what the “rivals” are offering.

Still, the big hassle is multiplicity of plans. If the GSM operators need to be taken seriously, they ought to have policies in place to communicate effectively. Including trained personnel who have the ability to spell out everything clearly. I was absolutely aghast when the Airtel “executive” claimed that GPRS speeds touches 115kbps. Well, no point in arguing about the “ideal case scenario”. But then, they did palm off a sucker who wanted to invest in mobile wireless.

There are enough of them to keep the companies in business for a long time.