Here’s my rant and rave about my ‘wonderful’ experience as a Tata Indicom broadband customer… This is the email I wrote to customer service, and needless to say I’m waiting for a reply, leave alone restoration of my connection!
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To who it may concern (I hope there is someone reading this in the first place… )
I am an existing user of your broadband service (tata Indicom) and want to bring to your notice the extremely callous and lousy service that I have received so far.
On Thursday 5 Apr , my account balance ran out .. This was at a time when I was in the middle of work, and needed a recharge immediately.
I called up Customer Service @ 022-67990121 and was told that there was no way to recharge online or via phone or credit card as these services were not available. The only option was to place an order and a sales rep would deliver the package with the new pin number within 48 hrs.
Today is 10 th April, almost 120 hours after I placed the order and I’m still waiting
You call yourselves pioneers in the field of technology and are yet to have a way to accept credit card payments, considering that there are much smaller establishments like grocery shops and hair cutting saloons where one can swipe a credit card these days.
Despite my frustration at having to wait I agreed and placed the order on the night of 5th Apr expecting the new recharge PIN number by Saturday or Sunday at the latest. I need Internet access mainly for work , since I support my users in Sony Pictures , Los Angeles and I could have lived without internet over the weekend.
I called up Customer Service again on Sunday, and was politely asked for my account details and informed that the delay was due to some inexplicable reason, a note was added to the order number to expedite the dispatch and I would be getting the package as soon as possible ( they should have also mentioned that Urgency for Tata Indicom is usually a matter of days)
Having not recd the recharge on Monday as well, I called up Customer Service a total of 12 times , between 10 AM and 10 PM. Everytime I heard the same helpless voice on the other end and everytime all they did was add one more Urgency note to my order… Surely the person or deptt that was supposed to read that order was not reading it, because there is no way I can explain why a person would not do his job even after reading 6-7 expedite notes on one order!
I tried my best to talk to the Team lead or manager level person at the call centre who would tell me what the delay was for.. And every time the standard responce was the managers were in a meeting, or they were not available…When I called up after an hour expecting this goddamned meeting to be over, I was told the managers had already left for the day… Guys - stop wasting time on your tea and smoke breaks which you so affectionaltely call ‘meetings’ and get some work done. Try to understand the trauma and agony of the person on the other end of the phone.
After a lot of coaxing and threats I was told all the level 1 execs report to a certain Praveen Rai who unfortunately holds the position of ‘Team L:ead’ .. As I can see, the team lead is not around most of the time .. I was never transferred to him, and as per your policy ( another Tata Business Excellence Model norm I suppose ) , no one would share his number with me .. I gave my phone number and pleaded that he call me to hear me out .. and let me know what heinous crime I did to get such service, but obviously he’s still busy in his meetings
After wasting hours banging my head against a blank wall, I’m yet to receive even one phone call from anyone in TataIndicom….or anything more useful for that matter… even if it was to say they coudnt find my address, and so could not deliver the bloody PIN number !
It is 4.30 PM on Tuesday 10th Apr right now , and I’m in no better situation than I was on Thursday night.
This is gone way too far … and your callous attitude is unpardonable. I would have let it slide and used a net cafe , but please understand that my job involves sensitive financial data, bank transactions and the like.. Which cannot be compromised on a public computer,
I have decided to file a case in the Consumer court - for the mental agony , loss of productivity at work the monetary loss that I have suffered at your incompetent hands. Further more I am going to write about VSNL/ Tataindicom in all newspaper columns I can get to .. and dissuade my friends and family to NEVER consider this service..Please do not venture into such services if you have no idea of what it involves. The Tatas should have stuck to making rails and sheet metal, probably thats what they were best at.. .. And this comes from a person who’s a 3rd generation Tata Employee ..So it doesnt take a genius to figure out how pissed I am.
Inspite of all this I would appreciate an acknowledgement of this email .. I want this to reach senior management , someone’s ears who has a say , someone who feels hurt by my statements…or a remote possibility - someone who can kick others in the butt and get them to do their jobs seriously.