On Monday I was late for work and had some car trouble, the battery was completely de-energized. I started dialing my boss, to my horror discovered that my mobile was barred, I heard the annoying recording “we are compelled to suspend your number, pls dial 131...” Now I have to walk up to the road (almost 1Km) and living in a plush neighborhood assures you of no idling Tuk Tuks. Dialog was adding on to my stress levels, when I really really needed it, it was not available – a moment of truth. All marketing lectures our corporate mobile executives had listened to, taken notes on was a sheer waste of time. I think the problem is they never flew Scandinavian Airlines. Anyways I followed the instructions and dialed 131 - not like it can any way save my walk! “Sorry this service is for temporarily disconnected customers, thank you for calling Dialog GSM”
I observed a few moments of silence to keep my composure.
So I began walking, with every step regretted not dumping Dialog as my service provider the previous week. I almost did it, when I was just outside Mobitel head office where I got all emotional about my number – I know this sounds stupid but then we are stupid as consumers giving in to our emotions. What triggered this near-conversion decision was a billing mishap where I was shocked with an outstanding of 14 grand. Two days later it came down to 8 grand and I had serious doubts about Dialog’s billing systems. I don’t think anyone’s so jobless to go thru their bills to verify all their calls. We should be able to trust our service provider. Imagine the status of pre paid customers? Anyways during this billing mishap I discovered there are 9 other lines listed under my name, which I never bought, even after verifying my identity the CSE refused to give me those numbers and told me to go to a near by customer service centre. I showed up at Odel outlet where the service was really horrible. They were unable to print bills or provide details of illegal numbers, however they could accept payments! Everybody had the same excuse – systems were being upgraded and it was getting stuck. What should have been Dialog’s problem had become mine!
Anyways, back to Monday, I went in to a communication joint and made a call to my office and then called Dialog hotline and spoke to “Nilmini” who was kind enough to keep me on hold for more than 3 minutes. Here I was paying for the inefficiencies of Dialog customer service personnel & policies. In my opinion in the category of mobile access, having to pay to reach the customer service hotline is totally unacceptable. No matter what the subscribers should be able to reach the service provider. I was so disgusted I cut the line off. I was cursing the fact that our mobile phone operators don’t understand what true customer service is, because I had no way of talking to a customer service executive. This is very "un-dialogy"! When you have a customer base of 4 million suckers you have to realize not all of them have access to a landline. A direct simple interpretation of Mobile:Fixed teledensity would suggest that only 1/3 of mobile subscribers have access to a land line (Mobile 21.5 and Fixed 7.5 according to TRC) when realities are such, on the part of the service provider they must empower their subscribers to access customer service at all times.
Anyways the story does not end here. But for now I have to start writing a presentation for a “juicy” brand. Hopefully I tell you more about the appalling status of mobile services in Sri Lanka in my next post.
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