I just felt like pouring all my angst into this blog. This is my vain attempt to prove myself right, after failing to do so on a wider platform. As a customer, what do you expect from a service, a site, a shop?. You expect them to outperform your expectations, or being a realistic person you are, you would expect them to fulfill the clauses they have promised. Anything below or down par is not acceptable as there are millions of other options waiting for you out there and why should one stick to this brand/site alone?. My gain will in turn effect the brand's/site's loss and in this era of mass communication a little negative publicity can topple even the biggies.
I am no expert in customer relationship, but as an end user it hurts when my expectations are not met with for instance, last day I rang up Airtel customer care on the hope of finding a solution to the ever frequent call drop at specific time of 1:10 and 2:10. Every time I make an international call to my clients, the call gets dropped at specific time. Every time I have to pacify the clients by explaining that there is an issue with the connection. On those sudden calls to my dad where I have to tell him to pick me up from office, the call gets cut midway. I tried calling 121, 123 to speak to their customer care exec but, without any luck. Finally, my brother did manage to find a way to contact the customer care. First you will have to press 2 so that you can get more info about the GPRS offers. Hallo!! a normal customer would expect the customer care key to be present in the main menu. Why would anyone bother to press GPRS and then again 9 to talk to customer care executive?. My connection was getting dropped even before I could press the lucky number 9, after trying for 8 times I gave up. Dad who himself own a post paid connection with Airtel gave me his phone to dial the customer care. By the time the whole incident happened I was on fire, fuming and the moment the customer care rep(A lady) took the phone, I started spitting venom. She got angry at me and told me that as my connection is prepaid she will have to transfer to some other section. The call was transferred, and a guy took up. This time I explained patiently to the guy about the issue and how much problem it's causing me. He told me there is no issue with my sim and told he will transfer me to some other section. The bloody guy put me on hold for 15 minutes and then the call was cut. I mean WTH!!!, I am recharging every week religiously with my hard earned cash and I have every right to know why my calls are getting cut and that too at exact same intervals. Being Airtel or having a great add doesn't mean you are invincible and no one will raise a finger against your service.
Moving on to another site Bestylish.com. Online shopping is slowly catching up in India and being one not to be left out I joined the bandwagon and ordered something from their site on Nov3rd. After my transaction was complete I expected them to send me a confirmation mail regarding receiving payment. Alas No!!I didn't receive any and the next day I send a mail asking them to confirm the same and that's when I received confirmation. Common, if the site doesn't let me know if they have received the cash how will I ever know?. What if they don't and my hard earned cash disappears into thin air with both agents refusing to accept it's their mistake?. Finally A week passed and I expected my courier to arrive any moment. Alas No!! I again had to ring them up and ask em if they had send me the courier... the guy tells me that my order is cancelled as the item didn't pass quality tests. If so, why bother fooling me and other lakhs of customers by putting up the pic of the good which is defective?. In that scenario, ideally I would have expected the company to replace my order( I would have happily obliged) and send me my good in 3 days may be then I would have been impressed or even it would have been okay if their refund process was completed in 2-3 days. Being the site they are and being taken for granted that they are I didn't expect both the ideal scenarios and Oh boy I was right. And what about my refund?. Weeks passed and I am yet to get one!!. I would never ever shop from their site no matter what lucrative offer they put in. I have reported it their agents and also posted a message on their FB wall. No action has been taken yet. Whenever people ask me about the site, I tell em without even blinking an eyelid NOT TO TRUST EM. I know me not trusting em won't do any damage but still, when it comes to mouth to mouth publicising and mass media publicising, I can cause a small damage and their possible buyers from my circle has eroded and none of my friends may never try this site.
I don't know but some of the best bloggers feel that mushrooming online portals may initially give you a good treatment and as they grow they tend to take their consumers for granted. Because they are a brand , they consider themselves to be above the consumers and this would eventually lead to their own downfall.
Am I being unreasonable here?. Spending big bucks, I expect quality, options and time from the brand I am loyal to. After all money doesn't grow on trees.
I am no expert in customer relationship, but as an end user it hurts when my expectations are not met with for instance, last day I rang up Airtel customer care on the hope of finding a solution to the ever frequent call drop at specific time of 1:10 and 2:10. Every time I make an international call to my clients, the call gets dropped at specific time. Every time I have to pacify the clients by explaining that there is an issue with the connection. On those sudden calls to my dad where I have to tell him to pick me up from office, the call gets cut midway. I tried calling 121, 123 to speak to their customer care exec but, without any luck. Finally, my brother did manage to find a way to contact the customer care. First you will have to press 2 so that you can get more info about the GPRS offers. Hallo!! a normal customer would expect the customer care key to be present in the main menu. Why would anyone bother to press GPRS and then again 9 to talk to customer care executive?. My connection was getting dropped even before I could press the lucky number 9, after trying for 8 times I gave up. Dad who himself own a post paid connection with Airtel gave me his phone to dial the customer care. By the time the whole incident happened I was on fire, fuming and the moment the customer care rep(A lady) took the phone, I started spitting venom. She got angry at me and told me that as my connection is prepaid she will have to transfer to some other section. The call was transferred, and a guy took up. This time I explained patiently to the guy about the issue and how much problem it's causing me. He told me there is no issue with my sim and told he will transfer me to some other section. The bloody guy put me on hold for 15 minutes and then the call was cut. I mean WTH!!!, I am recharging every week religiously with my hard earned cash and I have every right to know why my calls are getting cut and that too at exact same intervals. Being Airtel or having a great add doesn't mean you are invincible and no one will raise a finger against your service.
Moving on to another site Bestylish.com. Online shopping is slowly catching up in India and being one not to be left out I joined the bandwagon and ordered something from their site on Nov3rd. After my transaction was complete I expected them to send me a confirmation mail regarding receiving payment. Alas No!!I didn't receive any and the next day I send a mail asking them to confirm the same and that's when I received confirmation. Common, if the site doesn't let me know if they have received the cash how will I ever know?. What if they don't and my hard earned cash disappears into thin air with both agents refusing to accept it's their mistake?. Finally A week passed and I expected my courier to arrive any moment. Alas No!! I again had to ring them up and ask em if they had send me the courier... the guy tells me that my order is cancelled as the item didn't pass quality tests. If so, why bother fooling me and other lakhs of customers by putting up the pic of the good which is defective?. In that scenario, ideally I would have expected the company to replace my order( I would have happily obliged) and send me my good in 3 days may be then I would have been impressed or even it would have been okay if their refund process was completed in 2-3 days. Being the site they are and being taken for granted that they are I didn't expect both the ideal scenarios and Oh boy I was right. And what about my refund?. Weeks passed and I am yet to get one!!. I would never ever shop from their site no matter what lucrative offer they put in. I have reported it their agents and also posted a message on their FB wall. No action has been taken yet. Whenever people ask me about the site, I tell em without even blinking an eyelid NOT TO TRUST EM. I know me not trusting em won't do any damage but still, when it comes to mouth to mouth publicising and mass media publicising, I can cause a small damage and their possible buyers from my circle has eroded and none of my friends may never try this site.
I don't know but some of the best bloggers feel that mushrooming online portals may initially give you a good treatment and as they grow they tend to take their consumers for granted. Because they are a brand , they consider themselves to be above the consumers and this would eventually lead to their own downfall.
Am I being unreasonable here?. Spending big bucks, I expect quality, options and time from the brand I am loyal to. After all money doesn't grow on trees.
4 comments:
wow, this one is good, gonna use for another sport but i think it’ll be just as good, BIG thanks :)
Does this site have a page on Facebook?
i have had some similar experiences at fashionandyou.com ... they take so long to refund and its hard to track/take follow ups.
i have since then stopped e-shopping
KP
Well, BeStylish is owned by fashion And You or should I say same organisation runs them both.Ha! that would have given us an idea maybe that's why they didn't make this public until a few days ago
Post a Comment