“Ma’am we are extremely sorry you are absolutely right, we should have indicated the offer was not for you clearly in the message.” replied Uzma
“Your sorry will not bring my money back!” I said.
So here is what happened. I wanted to activate the GPRS services on my phone. Some of you must be sniggering over my stone age technology usage but the thing is – till I get my wifi connection back; this is the best the “Arab Sheikh sb.” can provide me in the name of internet.
There is a murmur about 4G but well, maybe Arab uncle will get it for us once my 3 year old goes to college.
Enough with the rant on 3G and 4G moving forward with the tale; hence I searched the million texts from the same esteemed organization about various offers on my phone about GPRS packages.
I finally stumbled upon a very good one with undisclosed taxation amount. I tried to activate it and voila absolute failure other than incursion of a few rupees in service charges.
Outraged I immediately called the service center where I readily accepted to spend some more money to hear a sane human voice. And guess what? It turns out the offer was for those customers who had not used the connection for three months or so.
The gist of this tale; I feel mugged.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the term sloppy did not apply to this sector of Pakistan.
The famous five still compete like Colas but the engine has aged a bit. Industrial growth curve is ebbing towards a plateau and instead of penetration, they all are leaning towards product development maybe even diversification.
This looks great on the books but what about the actual service, the core? For one thing, as a consumer I am not excited anymore.
Not so long ago whether it was ATL or BTL everything about cellular service was new and good. Now somehow things have eased off a bit, it has a lot to do with the loss in the service’s novelty aspect but then again how come other products have managed to retain it despite being over 100 years old?
My comparison maybe a tad bit unfair but I believe that there are many avenues that can still bring butterflies back in my stomach rather than a dull thud.
The people who are “chilling” their offices while bombarding us with 100s of messages from the company everyday have to realize that “WE DO NOT READ THEM ANYMORE.” There are so many that even the good ones that may bring about a transaction get lost in the clutter.
There is a term in personal selling called “low balling”. The “+tax” bit or the opening account about an offer not clearly stating its parameters brings nothing but bad blood between the customer and the company.
The worst thing about the whole scenario is that the millions spent on campaigns on new offers are not even close to accurate anymore.
Continuity in all these disturbing trends in the name of promotion hints that this “desperation” may not be visible right now but will dent customer shares in the long run. This is not a voodoo curse from a hurt soul (although I wish there was one) but karma from little fundamentals we all learned called customer trust, brand value etc.
“Superman” of my generation, telecommunication has always held great nostalgic value for me. I ache to let go of the wonders of great customer service that perhaps my selective perception fails to let go. It is flattering though to have one sector in our industry attracting investment despite the hits in fuel prices, or at least pretends not to be affected by the howling turbulence in the economy. Why oh why is it losing its will to compete?
