Bad mobile days

Dialog is continuing to disappoint me these days.

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.

Sweet Wood Mafia - Part 2

So, after two and half months finally I made the presentation.

The response was fairly good but it’s a long process from here. It’s just the stepping stone. There are many issues and confusions starting from who should own the brand. I recommended we should have an exclusive governing body for the greater good of Cinnamon. But then we realized that Mafia has a lot of influence over this decision. Every step on the way this project is becoming really intriguing. Anyways let’s move away from ugly realities of life. I m in too much of a good mood right now after watching “The Kite Runner” I would give it 9/10, Marc Forster is definitely one of the top 5 directors of this decade.

Its time to share some interesting things I was talking about in my last post.

After passing Beddegama with my newly found Cinnamon Guru we entered a town named “Gonapinuwala” he told me the myth behind the name, during the early ages food was a simple matter, whatever one could kill and drag back to the cave was your food. One day a "Vedda” (cavemen) came across a “Gona” (a Bull) and started charging, of coz the Bull was able to outrun the ‘Vedda’ however the Vedda never gave up his quest for food, the Bull falls in to “wala” (puddle) and swims (“pinu”) to safety. Hence the name “Gonapinuwala”

Sri Lankan culture is full of stories like this, in “Gampaha District” there is a place called “Hewariwela” where a king was resting at night with two queens who accompanied him on a journey. Fascinated by the natural beauty and moonlight, three of them got in to the nearby “wela” (means lake) and starts playing, one queen loses her “hewariya” (means wig). The name “Hewariwela” captures this story; btw do you think they bothered looking for it? Perhaps the queen was really ugly without the wig? (surely for it to inspire a name) or this was a wicked prank by the other? Or may be it was an early message on eco pollution – not to leave your artificial baggage behind. I think it’s the second one!!

Anyways during my crash course I learnt bits n pieces about village folks. I asked a few adolescents what they would like as B’day gifts. It was very straight forward; they all want mobile phones, the mobile fever is strongly felt here just like in city and town areas. I asked them who is most likely to give them one; grand parents came second after parents. I think what’s more interesting is the fact that most marketing people tend to discount the role of grand parents without understanding the nature of true social undercurrents. The age gap between adolescents and grand parents in rural areas tend to be lesser than in urban cities and as a result most of them still engage in some form of employment. In city areas the age difference between adolescents and grand parents will continue to rise as females in these areas are further pushing their marriage in to late 20’s. This trend will impact many categories from milk powder and insurance to even mobile service providers. Fresh perspective is the need of the hour!

It’s almost 5 am in the morning and I can't seem to publish the post as my Dialog powered GPRS keeps dropping. So I think I ll have to upload it tomorrow.

C-ya!