Recently I had to interact with two very high-growth organizations in India, as a customer. Both companies are well known in India and are kind of leaders in their own space, one is a bank and another is a mobile service provider. Here is my experience of customer service with these organizations.
Customer Service
In the bank, I was facing some random problems with my accounts. The problems were very basic, to me they appeared like mistakes. So I promptly wrote to my relationship manager and asked him to correct them. Days, weeks, and months passed by, but there was no reply to my emails and phone calls. I had to escalate the issue as not only the time was passing but my no. of problems were also increasing. Escalation after escalation happened, till I was talking to the regional head of Karnataka. Till that level, no one cared to listen and leave apart attend to my problems.
All this is when I am so-called classified as an HNI customer. Have a relationship manager to take care of my banking needs. On top of it, I work with an organization that is a privileged customer of the same bank. God knows what treatment the normal customers who walk into the bank for their banking needs.
Inclination to resolve issues in the Bank
What surprised me was that no one had any inclination to look into the issues. When the regional head did look into it, he still not had understood the issues or the problems. After exchanging some 50 emails, I could make the guy understand the problem. But still no solution. After a few more phone calls a couple of simple ones got sorted, but the more important ones are still hanging. What surprised me was the way all the people in the bank try to make a fool of you… The regional manager trying to tell me that he can not credit the interest due to me, as the interest is for the previous financial years…
While the dates we were talking about were between Apr-04 and Sep-04, and this conversation happened in Jan-05. Don’t they do any customer profiling in their minds or systems? Just wondering…
Mobile Service Provider
With the mobile service provider, I was asked to submit my Id proofs, which I had dually provided when I bought the connection. But the company had lost it. Well, some of their executives argue that I have to re-submit as per government orders. But is my PAN no. supposed to change in 18 months? Anyway, I did go and re-submit. But still kept getting messages saying that proofs have not been submitted. The guy whom I submitted refused to give me the acknowledgment that the documents have been submitted.
You go to their website and try writing to customer care, the e-mail Id is defunct. The phone numbers go to the call center, where everyone answers in an automated voice ‘Please go to the nearest ….shop and submit your proof’. They do not listen and understand the issue. They do not give you the contact details of anyone higher up in the company.
Finally, I had to fax the issue with a copy to the editors of all major publications in Bangalore, which did the trick. I got a mail saying, your documents have been received. Now why do I have to resort to such big steps for a small problem?
Some questions that intrigue me –
Should they not have defined service levels for each transaction?
Should the contact details of the person responsible for customer service not be public?
These organizations should they not publish the escalation mechanisms for their customers?
