Another Reliance experience – Wimax

I acquired Wimax broadband connection via Reliance sometime last year.  Once construction started in the vicinity somehow connectivity went downward over time. I decided to disconnect them and sent a request-written/oral via customer support center on March 8 of this year.  I followed up dilligently reminding them to take away the equipment and disconnect the connection before the next bill comes over. Finally got the confirmation that it was terminated on 21st march.

But alas, the process had not completed, they had not taken away the equipment till last month and every month sent me bill followed by  physical person to pick up the bill amount. Off course the person who came to pick up the bill did not have any idea my connection had terminated in march and I had not used their connection for really long time . But every month I would need to call up the support who would assure I would not get bill next month and nobody will make personal calls at odd times to collect the bill. Offcourse every call and related complaint result was nullified as none of this information ever flowed into the accounting/billing system.

BTW they went ahead and charged me for 2 months when there was no connection – this would be reimbursed in next 180 days

Challenges with Reliance CRM system-

1. Not integrated with billing system.
2. Not integrated with local last mile provisioning/deprovisioning system.
3. No one customer view – every time a call is made – there is no way to refer back to “open”/”hot” incidents related to the account. No way to see at one shot if connection is active.

One lesson -
Customer is big loser. Avoid group companies when you can. They acquire customers at fast rate without actual thought to “service”.  The “margin” for local service providers is low that they have little to no interest in “helping” the customer.  Their systems are antiquated with fancy sw but no real productivity. 

Many of the CIOs of these kind of companies (many of the insurance folks fall in this category) actually themselves never avail these services so do not know the loss of productivity for service staff and lost customer cost.  One of the firms uses a email system where customers need to break down the large attachments into mutliple mails and number them – this in the days of 5 GB limit mailbox and large attachment size available for free email systems .  Load of end user experience who suffers becuase of these broken systems and apathetic folks.

Filed under: Service Experience

Check your vehicle insurance – Reliance-Details not updated for 1 year! (via Dakshin Honda)

Background-A policy was renewed with Reliance General insurance via Dakshin Honda. I carry insurance schedule/certificate from Reliance but I found out to my horror while trying to renew that customer support does not carry any of the details “printed” on the schedule. This means if by chance I had met with accident in last year, they would have refused me any claim because they do not have details.

Further enquiry exposed the fact that branch in Jayanagar is supposed to update this information and it should reflect in the CRM system. Unfortunately for one year they never bothered to update/reflect the information and provide the minimum due information which would be the bottleneck in case of problem. The local branch number printed on the certificate does not ring anywhere, it is disconnected .  There is no other contact other than support who do not have any details or next steps except asking you to walk back to the reliance office.

Culprit – me who renewed policy via Dakshin honda based on trust (got the same insurer via them) and kept asking for the policy document for 3 months. Once I got the document I was certain I have all the information in case I get into problem. Just imagine the horror when I discovered otherwise.

So lesson – take that extra minute to call up the customer support # to ensure your information is present as per the document provided otherwise at crucial moment you will be spending money from your pocket.

Filed under: Service Experience

Movie Log 2009

Thanks to utvworldmovies – I am watching better movies.

1. Department 36 – French thriller – This was a surprise because genuine thrillers coming from France were rare in recent years. This provided plenty of edge of seat action and drama. Gerard Depardieu in genuine role after long time as one of the police officers competing for the post of chief with Daniel Auteuil. Movie traces the cost of jealousy, greed and plain apathy. It raises questions about ethics of methods deployed to produce “pr” worthy “newslines” and impact on people who actually perform them. How professional life gets intwined with personal? Some of the questions remain unanswered – but overall journey is awesome.

2. Lives of others -(German, 2006) – A subtle take on a paranoid society. A society which is clearly anguished and fractured by constant demands on their will and right to live. Former GDR was hotbed of spies, counterspies and “rebels” who needed “re-learning”. Some of the scenes are demeaning enacted to encite purile response. Is it worth watching? More than ever…as we become more “rationalized” and want simple “us” vs “problem kids” via information aggregation and tagging of personal items (audio/video/pictures).  Something like this in hands of few lowers the bar for abuse.  Personal view – I still think GDR had something good to offer – was the whole country painted in bad way? Are folks any better now without the “skills” to survive the “marriage” with FDR.

3. American Flyers (via Warner Brothers Channel)   – A movie worth watching for bicycle racing scenes (based on coors classic) in last half hour. Movie stars earlier Kevin costner( this guy has done more sport movies than others ?)  pushing younger brother to meaningful life. It is cheesy in many places – remember it is 80s .  But the racing scenes shot from innovative angles add up for watchability.

Pick up movie times from – http://tv.burrp.com/channel/world-movies/74/

Filed under: Service Experience , bike movies, french movies, german movies

Who watches the watchers?

The post which created the storm in certain media house.  Without bias/reading further do you think by any chance it was out of line? It is a viewpoint shared by millions of customers of this behemoth.

We have NDTV crying horse over Mangalore incident, but here they come and put a gag order on concerned citizen like million others. May be it is time to do poll on the trust and veracity people have today for media (especially – Indian – english news channels) and please do not publish it, as BJP would say(do chintan) – analyze the dumbfounding results.

It is okay for you to to put “blanket breaking headline” – Talibanxxxx Hinduxxx but not take valid criticism ?

Who was protesting the orders from government few days ago on not to publish the “live” news/views?

So what is next – gag people’s thinking which if you take a pulse today will validate and echo what he penned down.What happened to the admiral who voiced dissent?

Common factor of  rundhatis and pseudo journalists – delirious delusion !  Just play right into the right wing . Don’t agree ! so demonize.

Tejpal was brought down more by his colleagues in the profession not standing up for him.  (inspite of the technique used there to lure). But now mainstream television media is getting carried away with its delusion of grandeour.

Apologies Chetya – I am not linking anywhere to original post.

Here is Patrix - http://www.desipundit.com/2009/01/28/blogger-silenced-by-ndtv/

Extremely enjoyable “Adventures of certain Xutt” – http://2×3x7.blogspot.com/2009/01/further-adventures-of-hark-dabutt.html – How long before a spoof ends up youtube

Lekhni - http://elekhni.com/2009/01/a-bedtime-story-about-blog-freedom/

Slanderous rumour ? – http://penpricks.blogspot.com/2008/10/la-nd-tv.html (nah – just facts)

Traditional Media stance – http://www.bloggernews.net/119586

Different levels of journalists – http://gautamghosh.net/2009/01/31/for-the-people/

(Congress went ahead awarded the pseudosecularist who will sing their tune – what about the hundred others working in traditional regional media? )

Update – 8 Feb 2009 – NDTV pulled its own article expected behavior ? . But here is the PDF.

Filed under: Service Experience , Chetanya, Indian blogger silenced, NDTV, Press

Day -2 at Rural BPO Fostera – Channathanur

I have had chance to be at this BPO outpost as a pilot project gets underway. The setup is neat and works. It has server and 20 odd machines (with legal software) and working network connection. It employs local folks for doing data entry work and the pride of these people who want to do the right thing shows. They are sometimes humbled by the apathy of the network provider but the enthusiasm and desire to complete the work is amazing.
Tamilnadu does things right most of the time.  I am humbled by the spirit of the common folks again.

Update – Working here feels no different in glass/cement enclosure. Added bonus here is the home food from the attached canteen and excellent support staff. Actually if you are engrossed in work – you will forget you are in rural setting, personally I like the rural environ and hope they get more projects to embark to greater heights.

Filed under: Service Experience , egovernance, Fostera, Rural BPO, STEERS

Indian Media Excess – OJ series in India continues unabated

Mid-day reported how kidnapped person’s father held Media responsible for his son’s murder.  Lately Indian media specially the television has become hyper reality show with cooked up “supporters/viewers”, hours of unabated “report of music competition”, “product launches” etc and occasional get together of “people” talking about issues.

Today’s Indian media is shrill, over the top, unreliable muckracker and has  flimsy credibility.  The top stories for the tv media has been never ending “Great Indian OJ saga” consisting of Salman Khan (a film actor with history of bad/dumb behavior gaining sympathy at dumber viewer/fan’s cost) and Sanjay Dutt(Another film actor with penchant for anything on borderline of legal stuff).

It is utterly apalling to see both of these people get sympathy from “viewers”.  Anyway – One was indicted for crime after 13 years of holding an automatic weapon. Another one was let off on charges of drunken driving and mauling over people on the street as witness turned hostile(similar to Nanda’s- a former  naval officer’s name inheritor -mowing down 7 folks in Delhi). Salman was indicted in sleepy city of Jodhpur where a local tribe considers everything with life more than God. This man was caught killing Chinkara. At present the sympathy+appeal consists of pathetic attempt to get him off by saying many more people have killed others why he should be punished. Sanjay dutt tries to shave off his bad behavior saying he lost his mother, his father was good indian, he tried to protect his family by getting a gun from a mobster.

I would say inspite of assumed harsh sentences, these two folks should be treated guilty and serve the sentences. No questions asked.  Otherwise it will be always chicken and egg problem, nobody except the poor and without links will ever get punished and they will grow disillusioned with the illusion of system.

The role of the media in both cases was limited to

1. Running around the police van and shouting to give “views”

2. Sending breaking news about what the person was given to eat/wear/sleep

3. Breaking news with cell number of the prison

4. Breaking news of who met him/what they talked or witness who saw person inside/what he was doing inside today at this moment

5.  Interviews with friends and “well wishers” who justify how nice each one of them was – watching this was re-enactment of the earlier days of OJ trial.

6.   Interviews with astrologers on what is the “dasha”(Status) for these stars etc

Not even one tried to respect the judiciary and  present the facts and the impact of not allowing the law. Offcourse  good work was done uncovering scams(politicians asking for money for asking questions), shoddy trial(Jessica murder) etc. But they completely overlooked soldiers dying on border, sibu soren getting reprieve in presence of strong evidence.

The recent nuclear deal saga met its pit when one of the channel(aajtak) did a survey among astrologers to predict the dangers for the government. Heck not even one intelligent journalist worth the bread was around.

That brings me to the hot debate of recent weeks – should India sign the nuclear deal? This deserves another post.

Filed under: Media, Service Experience

Usability test not required ! Users-what are those?

I have recently acquired a broadband connection from Sify who seem to have strange way of obfuscating information. One would think a provider would provide information about connection available anywhere when online by using suitable authentication mechanism.

Notice the two of the simplest things

1. I needed to get the printout of the renewal information so that I could use it for future. Hell the “account information” and related renewal is so obfuscated you would be hard pressed to find the reason.

2. What about the speed test – looks like additional feature being sold to us. Unforunately it requires the JRE which does not mean a thing to the end user .  Good luck trying search and downloading umpteen things before it works.

Filed under: Service Experience , Computers, Testing, User experience

How to loose trust? – Keep doing it “Star News(Sic)”, HDFC, Tata Indicom – tips

Specific to HDFC

1. Promise to start the EMI in the next month but unilaterally change the date and earn “money” through simple interest called as PRE-EMI – even though person taking loan is ready to pay the EMI at earlier date (at the backend – book the “order” in later month – sand bag it – does not even matter as auditing procedures rarely unearth these simplest of frauds). Well done HDFC - keep doing it.

Specific to HDFC/Tata Indicom 

2. Call centers of Banks/ISPs – Create mechanism to make a customer wait till the last hair on his head is around. Anyway that customer will try 3-4 times and drop it. Makes sure to inflate the “process” excel sheets or prettier charts with meaning less data.  Embellish it with more FuzzBuzz words and extensions with reference(just plain plagarize) recent TLA.  Anyway nobody cares – who does check them ever. Call center application information does not need to be present with guy who fulfilled your order, nor does it have to available to other operation folks who might impact the data in that process.  The CIOs of these kind of companies should be made to taste their own medicine rather than allowing them to spend money on latest database/appserver/fancy client/server machines.  

3. Star news is best adult channel presently in India. For whole day on 15th/14th the breaking news involved “dance event in certain temple involving semi clad men/women”. Major clip being reshown offcourse being the seminude women doing utterly disgusting moves with special “commentry”. For hours together that was the only news – breaking all the more. I wish more such kind of events which get them dumber audiences and terrible TRP ratings. If the intention was to get more audiences staring and groping they got it, but their tag line was more inflammatory.

Watching the Media news in present day India is curse. It is loud, over the top, atrociously hashed “research” with no coverage of the world or important events. Then we have the Barkha and clan of “people interaction” shows which always brush the top and ignore the truth, all in name of covering the issue. It is more of media charade than anything else. Just like in US most of the media commentators are hopelessly liberal left wing nuts who carry lenin/stalin/che(recent venezuela president is fav too – born again leftist movement is on) in their side pockets(ok an exaggeration but pretty close).

Worst of felony was committed by the media to ignore “Col Vasanth” from Coorg who died while fighting the invisible enemy on the border but here we were doing unbashed long discussions on how nice and human sunju munnabhai is. How he deserves to be left out of the prison and what a pain it was to see him in the bars. There were extended reports about his dress/food he was going to get, size of his cell etc. Offcourse none of the bollywood stars and politicians did not bother to even think about Vasanth who died unsung death.

More recently Taslima Nasreen was attacked by Owaisi and freinds who wanted to go to jail and get the “mileage” out of lawsuit if filed against them. Hypocritic left and the liberal media nuts did not raise a single voice forget a march. If same would have happened to Blaine/Filmographer(choose the nairs etc) it would have caused many strikes and outpouring of “voice against the majority sting/right wing conspirators”. Offcourse discussing the actions of minority which is second largest population in the world for a country is beyond the leftist historians, liberal media moghuls and expert commentators.

Heck incidents like these are making me sound more like a right wing person. But lately through last few years our media has been hijjacked just as the education was. Heck Bush was badly guided by the rove/cheney but he is not the reason for our own problems and inability to tackle dumb things head on.

Filed under: Service Experience

Somethings do not change –

On recent visit to Belgaum one of the major initiative was to be with mom to witness her trials and tribulations she faces as wife of a bedridden retired soldier. The treatment in the Bank etc for old people is terrible to say the least. The concept of customer at least as in case of old folks standing with pain and tension does not seem to be the main problem for the bank which has monopoly on the distribution of government official pensions.

1. Old folks stand in line for hours to just get a checkbook updated where a person doing the job can ask them to go to another counter arbitarily at any time without giving any reason(possibly valid reason – hungry – i am shutting down).

Resolution – just have automated check updating machines with attenders to help old/people who can not read/write the interface.

2. Old folks stand in the one or 2 lines for the pension for hours again with shoddy service and personal question barrage – why do you need so much money when you are old, why are you withdrawing all the money, where will you spend the money etc. Customers also undergo shouting of various kind completely arbitarirly based on the mood of the teller. The teller folks seem to be doing a favor by giving the pension.

Resolution – why not have special monthly counters for disbursement of the pension by more # of people.  Get the servicing folks a training how not to ask personal questions and treat customers with more respect. (you have to be present physically to see the treatment).

3. Transfer of pension and easier validation of the pensioner – This is another sadly ironic stuff, a pensioner is person who puts in x years of life in the service and deserves the humane touch only when he has become dependent or is keeping unwell and can’t keep pace with the life.  I have to ensure mother has enough heart to go back to bank and get the pension as everytime the bank folks ask uncomfortable questions before disbursing the pension due to my father. Earlier I used to tell mom to just leave the pension and not worry about it, but she considers that as her/father’s right to have and be on her own. I was apalled to see how she and her compatriots of older age have to struggle and literally made to beg the pension due to them, they are made to run from pillar to post to get signatures and approvals and everytime this keeps on changing. I was trying to ask the manager how this can change as father can’t move or talk – one was insensitive to the extent to say – it is not their problem – it stuck me it is true. Least they can do is understand the dependents and make simple arrangement for identification. But I was expecting too much. BTW this manager was “educated” upper crust material with unfortunate lack of understanding of “service” and brimming with arrogance of being SBI person.  Anyway point was earlier on few occassions we met with few folks who could understand the situation and help.  we are keeping the fingers crossed as the transfer of pension to place of location is very cumbersome and totally unclear. Armed forces too do not have good mechanism to address the same or simple information disbursal for the needy.

4. Credit card woes – As mentioned earlier the local credit card companies are fast loosing the trust of the customers by delaying the cheque encashing, “forgetting to encash” , “blaming the courier/system” etc. Technique seems to be similar – delay the cheque encashment. Personally I have been stung by it in HSBC and ABN AMro lately. HSBC card I have cut off. The process was cathartic to say the least – I pre-paid the money, they denied having recieved the cheque, confirmation was done through courier firm(where we found the cheque was carried and deposited into black hole). They did not deposit the cheque for almost 20 days and later on system generated message reaches me threatening with consequences of not paying or paying late complete with  late charges. I question the same and share the cheque information, they deny having it, I share there own pick up(skypack reciept). It goes on till they say they have found the cheque with incomplete details and that is why they did not deposit it. Wow ! – what was incomplete – hmm name was not present. I look at my copy of the cheque – everything seems allright. But what the heck – I ask for latest charges including late and ask to be cancelled. I call up 6 times to cancel the credit card, every time I am promised somebody will call up to get the reason and cancel. It does not happen and in between I again get another letter of not having paid the amount. I call up with new reference, One person says my credit is closed and shows x amount credited extra(i have basically paid extra). another person responds saying they have not recieved anything at all . In the end – I record the call and keep it handy for you never know when they can reopen the account and create another fraud. I wonder what kind of CIO/IT systems these folks run (I was under the impression only government banks can be so bad).

ABN-AMRO is presently contesting they have not recieved the cheque dated 14th June for 9000 Rs and gone ahead and charged me extra amount. I am trying to see how can I survive without the credit card as I did 2 years ago to live a sedate, peaceful life.

Filed under: Service Experience, Travel

Times are changing

Reflecting on changes sweeping through the processes. I found few things refreshing

1. I am sunbscriber of the SBI life insurance (don’t ask me how I got entangled) and needed to pay delayed premium this year June. I got the premium advice of May in June end and was dated February. So I had little expectation about efficiency and was worried more about lethargic “level of service” which will be offered when I call up to get status and how to fix it. To remedy the situation I called up the service center which was closed but it mentioned a web address to go on and find more information. On the web SBI has massive spread of real estate in terms of various websites. Getting access to the right one (intuitiveness is lacking in most of them) and finding out contact mail was not easy but what did surprise me was the detailed email which mentioned the minimum amount, place to deposit and detailed information.  Sweet. If nothing else somebody there is working hard to ensure customer remains with them for longer.

2. Packing & Moving : India is surely changing. In most part of the life I have experienced moving/packing being part of the armed forces family. Cutting off the friends/relations, experiencing the thrilling move in train (mostly) or 3-tonner(local houses move) became more of a norm through the growing years. The intercity move was co-ordinated well with father booking the tickets and mom packing up everything neatly easy to be picked up 2 people anytime. We also learnt not to accumulate (lately lost the art of convincing – how one does not need the stuff).  But moving as civilian once father retired was always a pain and I dreaded the move in the city or out of the city(we did shift 3 times before we settled down at malmaruti extension). I have already done one move from Belgaum to Bangalore and this one should be hopefully last one into “permanent” address. After the ease of moving and packing in US, I was dreading this move but sweetly surprised to find “directory of household movers” , aquapm, goel etc. One could reach them through the sms or otherwise. Only challenge being what kind of people will be brought in to move the stuff. Which for some strange reason is “basis” of unknown fear since normally move is done with friends and family help. I decided to call few of them to get more information and got good rates. Now the experience starts – will post back later the update.

Filed under: Moving, Service Experience