Inefficient Helpline
Ashim Kumar Paul
In the
last couple of years, Bangladesh has witnessed the incredible rise in the
number of mobile phone subscribers. This fact denotes the great enthusiasm as
well as the intense reliance of the mass people towards the wonderful device. Mobile
phones are not just a trendy gadget; it has brought about a grand revolution in
the people’s lives. Today it is not just used to make and receive calls but it
also provides a wide variety of other tech-based services. For instance, SMS,
MMS, Internet accessibility, short range wireless communication, business
applications, gaming, video capture etc.. It should also be noted that world’s best
cellular phone manufacturers providing latest features through their products
have successfully been able to create a niche market in Bangladesh.
Since
the number of the mobile phone users has been drastically increasing, the
mobile phone operators are toiling away to help bring the people under the
umbrella of advanced communication technology via the use of more efficient
customer care services. As part of their endeavours to convince people to use
their services, the mobile phone operators often make special offers to subscribers.
As many mobile phone users are completely informed about the procedure with
which they can avail these offers, they often face technological hitches. As a
result, they resort to communicating with the customer service manager via the
help of the hotline to assist in resolving the glitch. However, the lack of efficient customer service
professionalism and ham-handed network services, as I have experienced, may hamper
this laudable effort.
A
couple of months ago, I had received a message on my mobile phone from the
operator I use. I was informed that as a recently ranked elite subscriber of
that mobile phone operator, some special gifts such as free MMS, SMS, talktime
and a certain amount of internet data free of cost. To receive their gifts, I
had to activate the offer within the mentioned deadline. Moreover, I would have
to guzzle those items within seven days after which their validity expired.
Enthusiastic,
I followed their instructions to activate and avail this offer before it
expired. From all the little gifts they were offering, what I needed the most
was the internet data since I frequently access internet using my mobile phone.
To my utter disappointment, I failed to receive the free internet data. As a
result, I dialled their customer care hotline for assistance. After a long
conversation, the customer manager assured me that within 24 hours, I could browse
internet on the free offer. I paid heed to him and waited. Although my phone
screen stated that I had received the free data, I was let down again as I was
unable to use it. Two days before the expiry of the offer, I called the helpline
again. The customer service official listened to my complaint and transferred
my call to their internet expert team to find me a better solution. The internet
expert team manager kept me on hold for a long, only to verify and confirm that
the technical hitch was solved. But his words proved to be off beam and I, being
utterly exasperated, rang in again. This time, another executive undertook a
time-consuming inspection after which he tried to pacify me by telling me that
it was a network predicament that resulted in the inconvenience. At the end, my
problem was yet to be resolved and finally, I gave up all hope of utilising the
offer.
Even though I could not avail the free offer and was unable to enjoy the
special gifts offered to me, the worst part was that I had to pay a surplus
amount of money for seeking their indelible (!) customer service. It is truly
sad how mobile phone operators are not careful about the promised services to
their valued customers. When subscribers seek help from these operators, should
these operators take advantage of their subscribers in this appalling manner?
