(UPDATE: Sanjay Swamy has posted that they have fixed this problem)
This is first in series of posts where I will share some of my (unfortunately, mostly negative) experiences with brands, with a purpose to highlight my learnings in designing services and managing customer experience. Will welcome contributions and experiences from others as well.
This one has to do with Airtel and there newly launched slew of mobile payment services (yes, the nice tv campaigns) through mChek. One of the services they have is that a postpaid subscriber can topup another prepaid account using credit card through the cell phone. My mom still uses a prepaid account, and I decided this was a convenient way for me to top her account up – so I paid Rs 250 (the signup and payment process was a bit clunky, but this post is not about that), promptly got a receipt for Rs 250, and then on my mom’s cell, got a message that her account had been topped up for Rs 50! I thought the software had missed a leading “2” somewhere 🙂
I called Airtel customer service, and they promised to have a call back to me in 24 hours. I didnt get one for over 48 hours when I called them back. I was promised a call back in 1 hour, and again didnt hear back for over 2 hours. I called back – unfortunately, no one there seemed to have a clue what had happened. The supervisor suggested different options – I could wait for my credit card bill, and may be it was charged only Rs 50. Or perhaps call the prepaid customer service line (its a treasure hunt trying to find the operator option there). Or may be take my sms receipt for Rs 250 to an Airtel outlet and show it to them (with no idea of what they would do once they see it). Almost saying, “Just get the monkey off my back!”. He promised he will have his supervisor call back, and by now I knew what that meant.
So I figured I had to resort calling up friends in Airtel and mChek. What I heard back is this – for Rs 250 payment, the talktime is only Rs 50 – Airtel deducts Rs 195 (including tax) out of Rs 250 as service charge! 80% service charge and no mentioned of that on the web site!? Sanjay from mChek clarified that if I had recharged for Rs 100/255/300/500, there would have been no service charge – what was this? A game of roulette? And tomorrow, these zero service charge promotion price points may change with no intimation to customers. Will there be an invisible service charge tomorrow for other payment services – you’ll never know until you pay and figure it out!
Here are my learnings:
- Don’t rip customers off – it never pays.
- Establish trust – will I use this service again? or will I see every Airtel promotion and think of what the catch is? My friend at Airtel told me this is the same service charge that is applicable offline. But the point is – when I go to the retailer, I can have a conversation regarding this. Here, I can’t.
- Be transparent – why was there no intimation of service charge either on the website or during the transaction?
- Train customer service – these guys had no clue as to how to handle calls relating to mChek. The people who designed the service knew instantaneously. The fact that they never lived up to their call back commitments made things worse.
- Control damage – my friend at concerned organization asked me to hold off writing this post for a day. I did. No communication.
Actually, another learning – I landed up waiting for three days instead of one. It helped – instead of a vicious customer complaint, it helped me think of what I can learn from this experience, and the lessons certainly have been worth more than Rs 200! Feedback welcome.
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Shashi – If you notice the webpage I linked on mchek, its example deals with Rs 250 value, and I was lazy enough not to change it. As perhaps was the person who also faced the same issue with Rs 250!
Firas – I dont think I want to take the hassle of chargeback with Rs 200 – I have gone through one chargeback before, and the customer service there isnt any good either! Power is shifting to consumers in other subtle ways that large brands are not just prepared for.
Sunil – Honestly, wasnt expecting me to be sent Rs 200 and a box of chocolates 🙂 What I was hoping for was that they would come back and tell me that they are building in a “statement of charges” in the process flow (before the final purchase) to avoid such occurrence in future. The crux here is that from mChek’s perspective, its an Airtel service and mChek has little control over what packages are put out. The irony is that mChek wants to be an end-consumer brand. So its stuck between its aspiration and its influence/ability of invest. Being a brand entails taking ownership of customer experience, and that is simply something they are not able to do here.
The calling problem is a regular problem with Airtel & Idea.
They promise to call back within a period of time but they rarely do.
The best thing which works for idea is to just email them the problem, they call you 100% the next day. I have emailed them about 4 times in different cases & i have always got a call.
But yes Alok is right, these telecos are still unsuccessful in establishing trust with the consumers.
Krish: But bad service has never put pressure on the stock 🙂 I think a lot of companies here take service as a “why bother” thing; it’s almost like good service is such a surprise that you adore a company for just maintaining minimum grade. In Bangalore, Airtel’s broadband service was excellent (I’ve since moved out of the city) – they would get things sorted in less than an hour! But their cell phone service line was, how do I put it, pathetic.
What I’ve found is also that these companies don’t care about bad PR. Or they do half measures to help. I have seen blog posts on ICICI bank complaints running to about 350 comments. Some random ICICI PR person ends up in comment #250 saying I can help – and then never follows up.
One thing to add to what Alok said: If you screw up in service, first admit it, and second, go out of your way to solve the problem. In this case it would be to give Alok a Rs. 400 credit on his bill (small change for a funded co like mChek?) and to promise to ensure Airtel does not charge more than x% anymore.
Speedy resolution endears customers more than anything else.
Season of learnings, I suppose. Alok, you get another reason to short Airtel stock… Perhaps you can recover your money faster and give them one back in the eye;-)
But mine was slightly kinda’ hilarious experience with Vodafone.
Lately I’ve been getting SMS messages even before I get my mobile bills saying “your bill has been despatched to you on……and the bill amount is Rs…… You can make a payment by replying to this mobile with the code…….as the message and it will debited to your credit card no……….”
The barrage of such messages over the last few months finally got the better of me (I don’t trust online payment processes so easily) and I yielded. In an instant, I got an acknowledgement and a trancode. In another twenty four hours I got a series of messages. “Your vodafone bill payment cannot be effected because of technical problems and please make the payment over the counter”.
This morning I get an email with the same message. I reckon bad service is not necessarily gouging the customer like Alok had experienced, it also is if they hurry to market with a service that is not robust enough.
And, telcos like Vodafone, Airtel etc., are hardly startups as can lean on “growing up” excuses. Sad thing is that Vodafone is not listed so I can’t even short its stock 😉
Wow! Is this Sanjay the CEO of mCheck? If I was him the first thing I would have done is sent you Rs 200 and a box of chocolates and then fixed my service.
To recount another story, quite the opposite – I had booked a trip using Travelocity for my dad and me – a cruise to Alaska. The folks at Travelocity told me that my dad did not need a canadian visa as long as we did not get off at the one canadian port it stopped at. However when we got to the port the cruise line would not let us get on and the ship sailed. The cruise line wouldn’t give us a refund. It turned out that even the canadian consulate claimed a visa was not needed.
In any case I was out a few thousand dollars and no one at the cruise line would listen. I felt that as travel agents it was the responsibility of travelocity to help me. I tried the customer service and though they listened they limited their efforts to contacting the cruise line a couple of time.
I finally sent an email to their CEO with the details. I sent the email at 1am in the morning, by 5am she had responded and told folks to look into it. In about 2 weeks it was resolved, they couldn’t get the cruise line to budge so they paid me 50% of my loss. I still lost some money and a trip and so did they, but now I was happy travelocity customer and would be happy to recommend them to anyone. Thought I am still pissed at Princess Crusielines.
They have probably fixed their instructions on the website to be more conservative and conform to the cruise line instructions as opposed to the canadian govts instructions.