Thursday, February 08, 2007

When Hutch Pulled the plug on me

Day Before yesterday evening, suddenly calls wouldn't go through, messages failed. Thinking something was wrong with my phone I dozed off, but the problem remained in the morning. No amount of re-inserting the SIM or fiddling with my phone had any effect. Even though I knew I had a balance of over Rs.700 and at least 5 months of validity I couldn't check that either. Calls to Customer Care wouldn't go through either. Convinced that something was wrong with my phone, I called Hutch care from my land line just to check.

Hutch Care (Automated Voice): Hi Welcome to Hutch Care, English/ Tamil, Enter your Mobile phone Number
Me: Beep Beep Beep Beep
Hutch Care Call Centre Operator (HC): My name is Y..., May I have your name & Telephone number please
Me: I just entered it... What was the point of all that
HC: Hmm... May I have your name & Telephone number please...
Me (Reluctantly): Dr.Prahalathan, 9884188018

HC: Yes Mr.Prahalathan, what's your problem?
Me: Call / Msg not goin
HC: Did you submit Photo identification
Me: Yeah, last week at Hutch Shop
HC: Your details are incomplete
Me: What? I submitted Copies of Driver's License & Medical Council Registration
HC: You have to re-submit Photo Identification
Me: What?
HC: It has Chennai-18, but no Teynampet
Me: Both Driver's License & Medical Council Registration mention Teynampet, Chennai - 18
HC: No sir, there is no Teynampet
Me: How can that be missing in copies of both documents?
HC: You have to re-submit Photo Identification
Me: Chennai- 18 is Teynampet, What seems to be your problem?
HC: Sir, You've to re-submit...

Banged the phone and started off to the Hutch Shop

The place had just opened, only one Hutch Care Executive was there, yet there were at least 10 irate customers before me. I joined the queue and added my number to the growing list. The executive (HCE) couldn't handle the numbers, she called a Manager (HCM)
HCE: All these people have submitted forms, yet got disconnected
HCM: We have lakhs of customers, they may have missed a few forms
Crowd: If you cant handle, then why do you get new customers? We can always go to some other company...
HCM: hmm... Not like that, We tried calling your numbers must have been unreachable
Crowd: We get Spammed with Caller Tune and other messages and calls from Hutch
HCM: Calm down, We tried calling your numbers must have been unreachable
Me: So you're implying your network is bad, mobiles are unreachable within city
HCM: hmm...
Me: When u can send us all the crap as Spam Messages, can't you message us that you will be disconnecting?
HCM: We tried calling your numbers must have been unreachable
Me: £$%^, When are you gonna re-connect
Crowd: Almost 15 now, all yelling
HCE: Now, I'm releasing all lines...

Note how the Hutch Care Call Centre Operator and the manager kept repeating their lines... Do they teach these people to mug up standard lines?
My phone started ringing, I walked out without bothering to thank them, as more people joined the crowd...

3 comments:

qwerty said...

Ha Ha Ha........Almost all the service providers like Hutch, Air-tel, Aircel are like these only. And you know what ? Air-cel was charging me Rs.50 every month for phone banking service without even intimating me. I thought Rs.50 were for the HDFC mobile banking service and I kept quiet. The phone banking service means that you can store the phone book contacts in Air-Cel itself. Later when I called HDFC customer care and found that HDFC mobile banking is free, I called the Air tel customer care, they told me the service is by default and I will have to send a sms to subscribe it.

Who needs the phone banking service to store the contacts in Air Cel server when you can store all the contacts in your phone memory itself.

qwerty said...

Correction:
I mean the service of phone banking is by default and I will have to send a sms to unsubscribe it.

Dr LOKESHWAR SINGH said...

the service providers are looting money indirectly.
look at all those schemes....may make you feel at the first instant that there is something cheap in that partclr scheme.but if you closely observe its nothing but the same scheme in some other words.
it would be useful if we can find out the regulating authority to whom we can take all this grievances!
TRAI?

lokeshwar