I make this trip to a Vodafone store every month to pay my phone bill. I dont have a credit card and hence this unnecessary evil. And its an awesome learning experience.
Anyways so this trip is to any Vodafone store in the vicinity and I stay there for five minutes on average. Its surprising that even in those five minutes I see at least two people shouting on poor and often clueless customer care executives. And this is not an one off incident. It happens every time without fail. Every time someone or the other is shouting about inflated bills, sudden disconnection, charges without consent or 1000 other things.
I wonder for a company that shouts out loud that it is Happy to Help (btw GE Money also prided itself with this Happy to help gimmick), the service levels are pathetic. Customer care executives are often clueless about things that you ask them. Half the times they cant speak English or Hindi. And the other half times they are busy fixing their hair or creases or drinking tea etc. All the money that they pump on advertisement (which in my opinion is top notch) goes for a toss moment customer screams in the store.
My heart goes out to all those customer care executives that face the wrath of these angry customers for no fault of theirs. Can something be done about this rather than wasting money on frivolous things like fliers and other innovative ways of charging a customer? Is the advertising agency and social media agency for Vodafone listening?
3 comments ↓
There’s another angle to their ‘Happy to Help’ harp/crap.
10 days before my last date of payment of Bill, everday without fail, I’d start getting these irritating calls. The woman on the end would first rant off about how she’s calling on behalf of vodafone and how orgasmic it is for her to help me (only on phone, mind you). Then she’d remind me that there are only 10 ! days left before the last date and asks me when am i going to pay the bill.
the first 2 days of receiving that call is fine, I reply politely that i will pay it in due time. The 3rd day onwards I start getting mildly irritated and come up with replies like ‘Life is very unpredictable, who know whether you or I live till tomorrow’ or ‘I’ll pay it tomorrow only if there is a dust storm in antarctica’. 6th day onwards I am more than just irritated. Then the woman has to hear things like ‘I would pay it only if You guys wouldn’t annoy me everyday’ or ‘are you annoying me only for pay or do you actually get pleasure out of this?’. The last 2 days I’m simply fuming … just as soon as i hear ‘hello sir i’m calling from voda…’ i start screaming at my poor handset. People around me only hear things like ‘what the fuck … your problem … my bil .. my late charges …. you fuckers … irritati… bloody … fuckers …. @#$!$!##’
But on any given day , she’d only reply as ‘ok sir, I’m happy to have helped’
They should rechristen Vodafone as ‘happy to annoy’
god… reading sudhanshu’s comment reminds me of the days when i was in a problem with vodafone.
the details about the problem are mentioned in my blog under the title “problem with vodafone customer care …”.
even i was tired of answering their calls. each time a new person would take up the call.
and when my phones services were suspended, they started calling my brother. when my brother annoyingly gave my office number, they started calling me at office, even when i begged of them to talk after an hour as i was busy with morning work.
people at my office had seldom seen me so angry. but the people at the other end, i.e. the customer care people, aisa lagta hai jaise unhe galiyan khane ka training diya jata hai.
i was really annoyed. they really don’t understand anyones problem and are least willing to help.
The only thing we can do is, suggest your frienz not to use vodafone.
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