The Customer (S)Care Departments

I received a call this morning. I had a hearty laugh after that.

Somehow, all of a sudden, numerous customer care representative (tele-callers) from various banks, mobile companies, investment firms, and so on have flocked my cell phone – luckily all girls (a soul saving gesture) with voices varying from that of Lata Didi to Rani Mukherjee to Amrish Puri.

Handling tele-callers from customer care department has always scared me. However, at times, dealing with customer care representatives has been fun. I, whenever my mood and time permitted, have tried to give them a hearty break from their monotonous, lethargic routines.

The call that I received this morning was from some institution dealing in online share trading, DEMAT accounts etc.

She: Good morning Sir, I am calling from XYZ. Do you have a DEMAT account sir?

Me: Good morning Ma’am. Yes

She: Aap kiska DEMAT account use karte hai Sir? (Whose DEMAT account do you use Sir?

Well, she must have meant which institution’s account I use. However, I was in some mood to lighten myself. And I replied thus…

Me: Mein khud ka hi DEMAT use karta hoon Ma’am, kisi aur ka kyon use karoonga (I use DEMAT account of my own, why would I use DEMAT account of someone else?)

I started laughing loud. The girl was a sport too. She joined my hilarious roars, as well, and hung up few seconds later.

I was traveling from home to office, rejoicing the morning conversation. I was not repenting it, in any way. I remembered similar calls that I had received last week.

A young lady, possibly could have been a slim pretty girl, with a sweet voice blended with a vernacular dialect, called me to sell a credit card of a bank. I kept conveying my disinterest and my belief in ‘I-will-never-use-credit-cards’ (earlier usages had given me rides of suicidal abnormalities – piling debt, recovery calls/threats..ssshhh).

She: There is an amazing offer. You will get …

Me: I am not interested

(After about 3 minutes of verbal tussle)

She: Sheyy…ye log saale sunn ke bhi nahi leta. Hum itne mehnat se phone karte hai. Humari bhi nokri hai yaar (Damn…these people are not ready to listen also. We take so much effort to make calls. This is our job).

I could hear her frustration-dipped-mumbling as I was about to disconnect the call. I felt little sorry for her. I do get emotional sometimes. The momentary emotional atyachaar is better to handle than financial crisis due to credit cards; sediments of emotional sentiments would eventually whither away, automatically.

The same evening, I received another call from some other credit card company. I got ready for the introductory verbiage, which all customer care department use, irrespective of the services they offer.

My heart knocked at the doors of my brain, and asked it to behave, reminding me what I had done earlier that morning. I decided to listen to the executive patiently and be as sympathetic as I could.

The customer care executive, a fine young lady again, explained the services, offers, benefits, terms & conditions, and other details to me. She went on for next 10 to 12 minutes; the entire battlefield of verbal conversation was open to her to make all sorts of shots of me. My only defence was “Hmm”, “Aaha”, “Accha”, “Nice”, “Cool” sporadically spread over the entire conversation; and a sigh of relief at the end of her verbal ballistics.

She: Toh Sir mein kabhi bheju humare representative ko form leke, aapke sab documents toh ready rahenge na? (Then Sir when shall I send our representative with the form, you will keep all your documents ready, right?)

Me: Well Ma’am, I appreciate the details you gave me. You have been very kind and patient in explaining your services to me. However, I do not use credit cards and hence I may not want to avail this offer. Thank you very much.

She: Arey to pehle bolne ka na interest nahi hai wo, itna time kyon waste kiya hamara. (You should have told that to me earlier that you are not interested, why did you waste so much of our time).

I got two reactions to two identical issues, both reactions extremes of each other. For a while, I thought, all these customer care executives suffered from bipolar disorder. I stood there confused about “how should a customer react then?” “Customer is king”, really?

Here is one more, the most hilarious experience that I had last year with the customer care department of our very own desi MTNL. I had subscribed to MTNL Triband – lightening fast broadband connection.

I get MTNL broadband 2Mbps speed, I am excited and I am happy (till date). Auspiciously (yes, I can say that), there have never been any major issues. There were rare discrepancies sometimes though. They delivered what they promised. However, as all services get disrupted someday for some time, at least, MTNL too face some failure (recovered in 4 hours, mind you), and I called up their customer care.

Let me remind I had called up the MTNL customer care, don’t expect the 20 somethings (no young ladies with nectar-doused tongues to talk sweet) to take your call and greet you pleasantly. Typically the environment there would be some Sathye bai talking about some Joshi Kaku and a supervisor Tiwari shouting in the background at some linesman Dubey.

Here goes the conversation.

Me: Hello Madam, Good afternoon.

Lady (40 something, and I give respect to elders, hence Lady and not She): Haan bola (yes tell me)

Me: My name is Amol and my phone number is XXXXXXX, I have been facing some problems with my internet

Lady: Hmmmm

Me: Can you please direct me to some technical person

Lady: problem kay jhalay, modem chya 4 light petlayt ka (what is the problem, are the 4 LEDs on the modem blinking?)

Me: Madam, sagla nit ahey, pun ping hoth nahiye kontich site, page cannot be displayed error yetoy (all is ok, but I am not able to ping any site, and I am getting the page cannot be displayed error)

Lady: modem bandh karun chalu kara 5 mintani (switch of the modem and put it ON after 5 mins)

Me: me karun pahile tey, LAN cable sudha disconnect karun parat connect keli, PC suddha restart karun pahila (I have tried that, tried LAN connection and restarting the PC as well)

Lady: Laptop vaparta ki computer (are you using a laptop or a computer) [I never knew these two could be different]

Me: Uhhh…Laptop (I was totally pissed off)

Lady: Window (not Windows ok) konta ahey, 98, 2000 ki XP (which version of Windows are you using) [Bill Gates will be terribly happy that people till today still do mention Windows 98, hahahaha]

Me: Vista, Windows Vista

Lady: Visshta, navin ahey kay, tey amhala shikavla nahi ajun. Aye Pournima (or may be Premila) aplyala ajun Visshta sangitla nahiye na ajun (Vista! Is it new? It has not been taught to us yet. “We haven’t been taught Vista yet”, the lady confirmed with her fellow colleague)

Me: Ok, thank you madam

The issue somehow (I still don’t know how) got resolved after 3-4 hours automatically. It was frustrating but it was fun, I still get a brisk smile on my face and sometimes load of laughter when I remember or narrate the incident to someone.

I am laughing, now as well.