My debit card was to be renewed. When I got the first message that the card had been dispatched, I told Krishnan and mom to expect it soon at home, since I had updated the Bangalore address, wrong assumption. The bank account aligned to the card still had my Pizza Corner address as the office address …. A firm that I have quit in 2001, twelve years back !! Then I got an SMS from the courier company asking me to choose the time of the delivery and I did. When no card arrived for more than a week I realised something was wrong and called the bank.
That’s when I discovered the Pizza Corner address being still on the account ! So I updated the Bangalore address as the primary address and asked the bank to resend the card. This was the 17th. Nothing happened again for a couple of days. I got a call from the bank’s call center saying the address was still not updated … Ok I called bank again and confirmed that my address change was effected and that they will redirect the card to the Bangalore address. So I thought I will get the card in time and the lady from the bank even empathized with me saying I need the card to use from the 1st of Jan, touching !
Nothing happened again, finally I called the bank again and was given the waybill number. I checked online on Monday, thinking the card would be reaching anytime… No, it had gone again to my Gurgaon address 🙁 and had finally been redirected to Bangalore only on the 21st. So that was good too, but it wasn’t good because I didn’t get the card even on the 24th and to add insult to injury, the courier’s website said, doors were locked on the 24th when they tried to deliver !!! Hmmm, this when mom was at home the whole time. I called the 24 hour customer service centre on the 25th and was told in an unconcerned voice that the card will be delivered on the 26th. I again emphasized that I was travelling on the 27th and needed the card.
Yesterday was the best …. I start calling the customer service centre from 12.30 onwards and speak to seven different people and finally the last person deigns to give me the delivery man’s number at 5 pm when I had nearly given up. I called the delivery man atleast ten times, and got no response, but credit to him, he responded to the SMS and finally my card arrived at 6.15 pm.
In this whole process I lost nearly 5 hours in just following up …. Terrible waste of useful time. But nearly EVERYTHING requires hours of follow up – Its an Indian thing, haven’t had to do that with Amazon or eBay or any other US firm. The customer experience is so much more evolved, easy and hassle free. Someday, I wish we get to a “wow” customer experience in India too. Am an optimist, it will happen someday. If not optimism, market forces will make it happen. Till then it’s a “phew, it happened” experience :(:(
Courier company in this case – Bluedart.
Bindu, not sure why, but my head, heart and everything hurts just to be on a call with any agent of any kind, customer service folks, banks, vendors, work associates or just anyone. There is such lack of understanding of what we call them for, they speak as if they have a recorder in their head, miss all the information/instruction we give them, often in writing that too, and we spend hours and some times days fixing all that goes wrong. I lose my head, my cool, and I despise my lack of composure. But, I have no clue how to fix it other than up and leave and find some peace in the mountains so I can last a week in the city! 🙁
Kavitha – you are right. It bugs me no end. 🙁