Sunday, September 25, 2011

Customer Service

Euphoria should have been apparent in me when my phone company sent the ubiquitous sms, victorious in celebrating the resolution of my complaint.  Euphoria, because they took a month to deal with what was, in my opinion, an absolutely asinine situation wherein my internet was working but my fixed line, which was a prerequisite for the internet connection, was not!!  But, unbeknown to the service provider, my reaction was one of anger and astonishment.  Why??  Simply because nothing much had changed and my phone was stubbornly refusing to be the enabler of communication it was supposed to be.  The petulant voice of the Voice Response System repeatedly and indifferently informed whoever cared to listen that both outgoing and incoming calls from/to the number were barred.

Unwittingly, two months earlier I had sowed the seeds of the problem, which had come to haunt me now.  When we were going away from home for an extended period, I had asked for the number to be placed in an invitingly named facility called `Safe Deposit'.   The service screamed out to me: `Hey, leave things with me and everything will be hunky dory when you want them back'. When I had paid the charges for this in advance after filling a form, I specifically demanded to know whether I had to fill another form for reactivation.  I was being guided by past experience, when I was forced to travel 22 kms to sign a sparsely worded form to resuscitate some other service.  This representative looked at me exactly like a Six Sigma black belt would look at a certified moron and condescendingly explained that another form would be a waste of time, wouldn't it be, sir??   Any novice, wet behind the ears, would have been misled to believe that customer service in India was improving in texture by leaps and bounds.  When we returned home after a prolonged trip, we found that internet was working on the designated date but the phone line was not.  I did not realise that the `safe deposit' they advertised and I fell for did mean returning of things to you when you wanted, but not necessarily in working order!!  Thus began my tryst with the customer service function of the phone company, which was going to provide me with one month of non-stop entertainment in many ways.

I began by calling the given number and baring my soul regarding the issue.  Without even pausing for breath, the omniscient representative pleasantly said `sir, you may not have paid your bill'.  That was pretty thick indeed, as an initial response to a peeved customer! I asked the lady whether she was sitting a-la-hermit in some Himalayan cave, without access to my account.  Couldn't she look at the screen in front of her to see what the position is??  Oh yes, she said and after a break gleefully announced `sir, you have a credit balance for this line'!  Actually the tone suggested that I lacked basic intelligence to be leaving money on the table for a fixed line.  So, now, why was the phone not working??  She probed for another minute and triumphantly diagnosed that the line was barred.   Despite the entertainment value of such a conversation with someone who seemed to have a lot of time at her disposal, I testily said  `yes that is indeed the problem, I am looking for a solution'.  She scratched around for a few more minutes and then finally did what all these people have been trained to do - sound the death-knell to customer service by handing out to you a complaint number, while emphatically declaring that the problem would be resolved in the next four hours.  Just to ensure that the customer's transactional experience is enhanced even further and he smiled in the midst of all these trials and tribulations,  a message arrived on my registered email address, restating that `your complaint will be resolved in four hours, that is, by 2:22:46 (the last two numbers denoting `seconds') pm on August 16th of 2011!!  I was floored; one does not quarrel with that kind of precision!

After the lapse of 24 hours, the stony status quo was well-preserved and my moribund phone connection gave the impression of having lapsed deeper into coma.  I decided to resume my enjoyable conversation with the customer service rep.  This time a male of the species took my complaint number and details and probably scrutinized the unyielding screen in front of him for some clue before telling me `but your problem should have been resolved yesterday'.  Such unshakeable faith in their own system of problem resolution was very heartening, but I bristled with that heavy dose of salt on the open and throbbing wound.  I assured him I had better things to do than chatting with him if I had no problem.  He put me on a hold and probably had a chat on the evening's possibilities with his neighbour before coming back to me.  Then he did what I believe is a master stroke in the way all these service providers monitor their outstanding complaints.  He casually told me he has registered the complaint again and here is the new complaint number.  A brand new complaint number for you to be so pleased, sir!!  Attaboy, had I discovered the most efficient complaint resolution process devised by companies? The ingenuity of the simple mechanism used to keep the slate squeaky-clean was breathtaking, to say the least.  Just close the aged and unresolved complaints and log new ones as outstanding for less than the desired length of time?  Again, I was given the morale-boosting 4-hour time-limit hogwash and a message followed with the second-specific deadline, by which time one could say 'God is in his heaven and all is well with my phone'.

To cut a long story short, the above rigmarole played out for long and I had some 15 complaint numbers given to me over the next 25 days.  I am sure their own system deliberately omits any linkage among all these complaint numbers, for obvious reasons.   Somewhere between the 7th and 8th complaint, I asked for the supervisor and made her listen to my tale of woe, which was brimming over.  She came up with a startlingly new one - `sir, you should visit an outlet and give a letter for us to reactivate the service, have you'??  When I protested that their own people had confirmed that no further written instruction was necessary since the end date of the `safe deposit' service was already agreed upon in writing, she said brightly `sir, that is not the procedure our department follows'.  This is another regular ploy used by service providers - all their internal compartmentalization comes into effective play and it is deemed to be your good fortune to be dealing with multiple stonewalling departments to resolve an issue.  I refused to budge and told her to get things done or lose my custom (a fairly sizeable business for an individual, what with 3 mobile phones, fixed line and broadband) and she did not like that kind of a threat one bit, simply because now she had to do something!  Her assurance that she would treat my case as a special one and get the needful done predictably did not translate into any life-giving potion for my phone and it happily continued its dormant status.  Multiple visits by technicians ensued and hushed discussions amongst experts followed (a casual observer would have thought my personal nuclear reactor had sprung a leak and these guys were trying to fix it, without creating panic in the community!) in and around my house, while the phone continued to be comatose!

When I had enough of this entertaining charade, I got the number of the person responsible for fixed line phone business in Bangalore and called him on a Saturday at 5 pm.  He listened to me and gave me the number of his Customer Services Head, with a very polite request I call the other gentleman on Monday morning.  What about the fact that I have been without service for 30 days and had spent about 5 hours in talking to various reps of his company??  He said he understood, but the Customer Services Head would not be available till Monday morning.

I called on Monday; the problem was indeed resolved in 4 hours.  My demand for an explanation as to why
that took 30 days to do, elicited a cute reply `Sir, I shall call you and explain'.  That was about 15 days ago and I am still waiting for elucidation.  Now, the next chapter of this story is playing out - I have sought refund of charges for the period the fixed line was not functional.  I hope this one gets resolved in the next year or so, because by then I will have to (shudder!!) go through the safe deposit route again.  God bless me!

If you think that took the cake, listen to this - another bathroom fittings company gave me a complaint number for a problem and said their representative would come around the next day.  Two days later, I got an sms `Thanks for contacting us.  We are happy to inform you that your problem has been resolved and the complaint closed'.  That was phenomenal, how did they resolve complaints remotely, without anyone ever even looking at what the problem was!!  When I asked them to explain that conundrum to me,  they promptly tried to give me a new complaint number!!

Another puzzle in this whole process is that after many futile and nerve-wracking interactions one gets an sms asking for a rating for the transactional experience one had gone through!  Generally, I am usually lost for words and do not respond.

I am wondering whether Customer Service should rather be `Complaints Service'??  Worth suggesting, I think.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Deviated Septum (DS)

One has lived in this weird world long enough to say that one has seen or heard of all kinds of deviant behaviour.  Nothing is so deviant that you are shocked  by something, actually anything.  Having spent the best part of one's life in corporate world, one can also feel that very little remains to be seen of devious people.  Such characters seem to be inevitable fixtures in the lives of most people, like villains in the movies.  While one has taken all the above in the stride with the philosophical outlook that it is all part of life, something physically deviant has spooked me from unexpected quarters in the past few years.  A small bone which should normally have grown straight, has decided to take a short, side trip on its own volition, without any provocation from anyone and thereby hangs this tale. 

Initially, about 5 years ago, when I suddenly and repeatedly woke up in the middle of the night after seemingly having slept like a veritable log for hours, I wondered why!  There was no apparent change in anything around me (it was the same wife and same paraphernalia) and I could not figure out what prompted me to wake up time and again with a start.  After a few months of monitoring and analysis (it was tough, because I was too groggy with sleep to instantly shift to `research' mode to identify the causes till the next morning, by when amnesia had set in and I had almost forgotten everything related to the nocturnal episode; anyway, my colleagues never set too much store by my analytical skills even when I was in mid-season form), it dawned on me that whenever I woke up there was one constant -  my left nostril was fully jammed up and completely closed for all incremental traffic.  Pretty much like any Indian road junction during peak hours, wherein everyone from all the four directions have converged as if by invitation for a free lunch and no one could make out who is going in which direction!  Once I had consciously shifted from horizontality to perpendicularity and retained the latter position for a few minutes, status-quo-ante was mercifully restored inasmuchas the plumbing inside the nostril seemed to work a bit and I happily went back to sleep.  But as days passed, the frequency of the nightly disruptions increased manifold and I spent more time in trying to sleep rather than actually sleeping! Then someone helpfully suggested it could be `sleep apnea' (very low breathing due to some block in the respiratory system), with a cheery foot-note that it could be fatal in one-in-a-million cases.  This blessed individual was directly looking at me in the eye when all this was pronounced, making it dispassionately clear what his expectation, nay, hope was!  Now, whenever something like this is mentioned you always believe you are the chosen one, even without any provocation!!  Intuitive perception does not work as well when you are buying a lottery ticket, even if statistically you have a better than an one-in-a-million chance!  So, I ran to the doctor even though there was no perceptible impact on me during the daytime - I was looking as sleepy as I have always been, before this affliction messed me up, people swore. 

`Deviated Septum' (DS)!, the doc enthusiastically pronounced.  Looked like this fella - not the doctor, let me clarify, but the bone - could not even cover a few inches of ground without making a small detour to the right to sniff around a bit to see if he can have a pow-wow with the neighbours.  The result was that the already constrained space inside the nose, reserved for breathing, got further constricted to the point breath threw up its hands and indifferently withdrew!  And this sudden change in my breathing pattern woke me up.  `Not sleep apnea', the doc said and I was so relieved that I was not going to be that powerless pawn in the deadly one-in-a-million game!  Till this point in time, I had never gone to a doctor for anything more serious than a twinge in the shoulder or elbow due to excessive tennis or cricket or whatever.  But now began my travails.  There are about 20 different concoctions inside small spray bottles which `could probably work in about 1% of the DS cases to give some 10% relief'. But as one can divine, the catch is that doctors generally do not know which works for whom.  So, my doc began a well practiced regimen of trial and error (more error, so the trial seems interminable) to see if he can eventually match one spray and my internal mechanism.   In this process I spent a fortune in buying medicines which I never fully used, because somehow half way through the doctor decided that specific spray and I were not made for each other.  All this, while I was sleeping less and less.

After the doctor was satisfied that I had exceeded the target in terms of spending money on half-used-sprays, he told me `let us go the surgery route'.  He did not sound like there was any alternative, so I submissively lay down on the table, while he sharpened the tools of his trade.  He said `you can enjoy the Bombay Jayashree CD you like while I saw off a bit of the bone.  You are being given only local anesthesia'.  After a bit, I could hear only the sound of the saw on the bone and the cheerful banter of those around the operating table, nothing of Bombay Jayashree!! After a few days with a bloody nose and heavy breathing through the mouth, I was pleasantly surprised to note that the left nostril had regained its ability to breath even during nights.  That lasted all of 18 months, when my ego-bruised DS decided to demonstrate that it had a mind and life of its own.   Like any corporate entity facing serious financial difficulties, it changed its own structure a bit and blocked my nostril all over again!!  I have since graduated to general anesthesia during the next surgery, with the assurance that the solution is permanent.   I must admit things are better now, but far from perfect.  For some reason, DS becomes less aggressive after 2 am in the morning and lets me sleep for about 5 hours and I am grateful for that small mercy!!  But I must concede that DS seems unconquerable in spirit, despite all the promises held out by the doctors.  Made of sterner stuff, DS is.

Very funny this - when I was a year old, I had a serious illness, with very high temperature and the doctor had almost given me up, when news trickled in from our native village that my paternal grandfather got suddenly ill and passed away within a few hours.  Miraculously, I recovered (don't sigh, thats fate - who would have written all these blogposts, think!) to go through life, eventually with DS.  Why am I saying this now?......my grandfather's name was, take a deep breath, Desikar Sadagopachariar; that is, DS for short. Has he returned to be with me for a while at this stage of my life, reminding me of what I owe him??  May be!  I shouldn't and don't mind at all.  Thank you, DS.



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