Wednesday, April 29, 2009

NOT SUCH A GOOD IDEA SIRJEE?

For all those people who think that they are lonely and feel that nobody in this planet cares whether they are alive, well I would say, think twice. Just try missing a bill payment for the month and you will realize that a lot of people do care about your existence! Infact they would care so much that you might get a bit overwhelmed by their love and affection over the phone.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the love and affection shown by “idea cellular” because my bills were overdue and had to be paid.So I decided that I cannot handle any more love and so went to the idea office in Vellayambalam ,Trivandrum to pay my bills.On reaching there, I also decided that since nobody was using that connection anymore, I might as well cancel it. So I asked the executive as to what is the procedure to cancel and this executive, well lets call her Vidya, told me that I cannot cancel here and that I had to go to one of their other outlets (In Sreekaryam) to get it done. I dint argue, and just went back .On the way back, I call up this idea manager (who has been calling me to pay the bill) telling him that I wanted to pay and then cancel and I was told by this executive that I cannot cancel in the Vellayambalam branch and that I had to go to the other branch .The manager was surprised and he immediately told me that You can cancel it in the Vellayambalam branch itself and that I needed to go back .

Ok, the fun starts when I get back to their office.Vidya is all heated up and and then has the audacity to create a scene there telling me that she never ever mentioned that I cannot cancel their connection in this outlet!! She even tried to gather crowd support there by telling the other executives and a few customers there that she never mentioned anything like that and that you cancel any idea post paid connections at their outlet. For a minute, I dint realize what hit me , I was at a loss of words to respond. I couldn’t believe that in a matter of 10 minutes, how can someone back track on what they said with so much of confidence?After some reciprocation from my end, I felt ridiculous at the way I was being treated and even more ridiculous at the conversation I was having with Vidya.I mean she was saying “No I never mentioned that at all” and I was saying “:Yes,you said that because if you dint, how would I know that Idea had an office at Sreekaryam?”After all this hassle. I finally managed to get my hands on the cancellation form, which I happily filled and settled the pending amount.

Well, I decided that I will send a feedback to the “Idea” team regarding my experience and sent in an email. They responded back in 24 hours . here’s their response:-

“Dear Mr. Rohit Krishnan,
Warm greetings from Idea cellular Kerala and thank you for writin g to us.

With reference to your mail, it indeed saddens us to part with this relationship. Mr. Rohit, since you are one of our valued subscribers, we would like to suggest you a few options to retain the number and continue our association

• You may transfer your connection to your friend or relative.
• You may convert the postpaid connection to Prepaid and retain the mobile number.

We have taken a note of your feedback regarding the intricacy you faced with our executive when you visited Trivandrum showroom . We are constantly updating the feedback received from our subscribers and using it for improving our service.We urge you not to form a lasting impression of our services based on your unfortunate experience”

Well, For all the hassle that I had to go through to cancel a connection, I may not be looking at any idea connections in the future. God made relatives, but Thank God that we can choose our Mobile connection providers!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh god! that should have been pretty frustarting..da..did you try calling up the customer service to give a feedback on this ?

007 said...

hey..that is serious shit man! does a cancelation from an outlet mean poor performance for that outlet ?

Protik Basu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Protik Basu said...

well, my friend..you have just been had by our proud CRM toting corporations. Read any of their pronoucements and you would hear sugary words which proclaim customer delight as their nirvana...but in reality its people like Vidya who are on the ground and talking to you...

People will shirk work if they can...thats human nature...and they just keep on doing it because they are not really accountable. In many cases, these guys are outsourced!!! (so you just felt what americans must feel when an artificial american voice on the other side tries to 'help' them!!!)

Dont worry...its the same everywhere...so just sit back and enjoy the customer delight that you are experiencing :)

Rohit said...

@vinod

No I dint try calling the customer service and giving them the feedback.Iwas actually speaking with teh manger there, so I felt that would be taken care of on its own.
Ya pretty frustrating!

@Anand

I guess so..I cannot see any other logical explanation behind the executive's sudden backtrack.Or should be that the executive herself did not know about it at the first place(dosen't sound right though:))

@Protik
True. Infact very true:)