Statutory warning: BPL mobile is bad for your health.

These days theres a lot written about customer service and how the customer is the king. Unfortunately I have not had the pleasure of interacting with such companies. To my bad luck I have interacted with companies who don’t know the spelling of “customer” and neither the meaning. Case in point being the following.
I have been using BPL MOTS for the past 6yrs (at the very least… probably more). Recently I have been getting calls from their call center telling me the pros of going in for billing or rather post paid instead of the pre paid that I was using. They would be falling all over themselves trying to sell it to me (possibly for the commission). Finally I decided to try it. Guess it wasn’t my lucky day when I took this decision.
Right away they sent a man to my house to get me to fill the form and I paid the required Rs.599/- (actually 600 cos these people always forget to return the Re 1 change). I gave him the photo copies of all the necessary documents that they had asked for. He said it would be activated the next day and assured me that the balance that was on my MOTS card will be carried forward.
They activated the billing procedure after 2 days. After which I got umpteen sms’s about welcoming me to the world of billing. This evening I get an sms from BPL mobile …which I quote verbatim “dear sub, pls provide additional details within 24hrs to dealer/bpl gallery to activate ur out going calls post verification and to avoid suspension.” Sender bpl mobile sent 18:17:33 hrs on 21-12-2006. to say I was taken aback is an understatement. I was shocked by the language. They did not even ask me for any more docs and just send me a threatening message. I called their mobile assist (don’t ask me why they call it assist… I guess they have a “hatke” sense of humour). Spoke to one Rakesh. Told him I was most upset and unhappy about being treated in this manner. I told him why cant you have a checklist where by your visiting personnel can tick off if he has got all the copies of necessary docs from me. I told him I work in shifts and it is not possible for me to visit a bpl gallery at the drop of a hat. What does he mean by 24hrs? I told him that if I could give a couple of photocopies I could give of 10 docs. All they need to do was ask. He told me that they were not aware of this happening and would have to check with their other dept. I told him I thought they were a computerized company at the very least. Why is it such a trouble for them to feed details about a customer in their computer so that whoever answers the call doesn’t give the impression of being dumb? I told him that I wanted them to call me back so that I could have a “meaningful conversation” with them about their absolutely shoddy service. Also since I had a roaming service on my MOTS and the charges of 49rs were already taken from it for the month of dec. I did not want them to recharge me that once they started the roaming service again. I ended the call.
A couple of minutes after this call I had to call a colleague of mine. Imagine my disbelief …when I tried to call his number I was told that the outgoing calls were barred. I called 800 again (the toll free number)….. this time it was some Prakash who wanted to help me. That’s what they say… haven’t had much help. So I told him to put me on to Rakesh. He told me that Rakesh was busy with another call and he would help me. So I said to him that I got the sms exactly an hour back and it gave me a notice of 24hrs and you have cut my outgoing calls in an hour? I mean I cannot understand their sense of time. I told him I don’t know how you do it buddy…but I want my outgoing calls started NOW otherwise I want my money back the 599rs and my MOTS balance which was about Rs875. I don’t want to subscribe to such a company. He told me he would put in a request and it would take them 24hrs. I told him but according to your sms 24hrs means 1hr. since they cut my outgoing calls. So by that formula I should get my money back in 1hr. So he tells me there was a problem with my verification. The guy who was sent to give a surprise visit to check my house address for verification couldn’t find it. I told him buddy try another one. I asked him whether he was aware I had a phone from which I was speaking. If the dumbo couldn’t locate my house all he had to do was call. He tells me it was a “surprise” visit. I told him even if it was “surprise” he could have asked me the location and dropped whenever he wanted to “surprise”me. I have lived in the same place for 33yrs. The peon they sent to fill out my billing application found the address without any probs. And for this flimsy reason they cut my outgoing calls without even checking with me.
I would like to advice whoever is going in for BPL mobile do so at your own risk. If you need the headaches…. The adrenalin…. If you suffer from low BP and want your BP to shoot up… then and then only subscribe to BPL mobile. I was happy using the MOTS as I didn’t have to interact with any customer service agents and even though the charges are higher …let me tell you the aggro is less.