AS is typical of most local ventures, new ideas and products are introduced with so much pomp and show that one thinks that this might be ‘different’, this might actually ‘work’. Well, it seldom happens.
A recently-launched wireless phone service was introduced with quarter-page ads in all leading dailies of the country. They probably spent more money on advertising the product than actually on infrastructure and support services.
The dealer network is poorly trained or not trained at all. The staff at the corporate owned facility at Clifton does not seem to be aware of what they are selling or of the features of the product. The initial lot of the mobile handsets seemed like they came straight from a used equipment dealer.
I had the misfortune of getting a connection as well as I thought it would be at least better than the normal PTCL line. I visited the local franchised dealer and wanted to get a post-paid connection. I was informed that no such thing exists at the moment and only pre-paid connections were available. Without an alternate, I acquired a pre-paid connection with Internet facility and paid for the phone, the phone card and the Internet card.
The next day I needed to find out how to activate the call-forwarding feature on the phone, so I tried to call the customer service number from my new phone to get the information. Lo and behold, the number works only for accepting the pre-paid card activation, the customer service extension does not work. I eventually called the UAN number and was informed that the requested service was available only on the post-paid connections, which were available and the dealers are authorized to sell them. The dealer swore that the post-paid connections can only be bought at corporate sales office at Clifton.
Nowhere, in all of the marketing blitzes, is it mentioned that the advertised features were available only for post-paid connections. The 40-paisa call rates advertised are also not quite true as they are applicable only for calls between two telephones of the same firm. How many of them are there?
I went to the corporate office to have my connection transferred to post-paid, hoping that it would be just a minor paperwork exercise and that’s all. After all, I already had a working telephone number. Wrong again. Pre-paid cannot be transferred to post-paid. I had to pay another new connection charge of Rs499.00 and also get a new number assigned. I started thinking about all the business and personal contacts that I would have to call again to give them the new number and look stupid in front of all.
I was also informed that the Rs299 card I bought for the pre-paid connection would be lost along with the Rs500 card for the Internet connection since I had activated both of them. All in all I lost Rs1,300 in this exercise because of the stupidity of the franchise dealer who offered to split the cost of the new connection with me and paid me Rs250 for the inconvenience.
Since I had to have the call-forwarding facility on my phone I got the post-paid connection. It has been over a day now and the new telephone number has still not started functioning. I was told it would take two to three hours.
I had to spend a good two hours in the sales office and the number of angry subscribers that poured in that time-frame was not amusing. The customer service staff was not very helpful and was unable to address most of the customer complaints to anybody’s satisfaction. Most disgruntled customers left unhappy with their issues unresolved.
I was told by the customer service associate in the sales office that I would still own the pre-paid number and will be able to transfer it to another handset if I, God forbid, wanted to get another line later on. The person, who handed me my phone after having it re-programmed with the new number, totally negated the other guy and said very emphatically that this was not possible. Once pre-paid is transferred to post-paid, the number was lost and was not my property any more. Yet another person in the same office was of the opinion that it was not even possible to transfer pre-paid to post-paid. While I was standing waiting for my turn to speak to the associate, one of the counter persons was talking on her cell phone all the time while processing the application of the customer in line in front of me. To me, that felt like an extremely rude behaviour, but of course in Pakistan it’s all kosher. If this is the state of affairs inside the corporate sales office, may Allah help the franchisees and more so, the hapless customers. Amen.
AS is typical of most local ventures, new ideas and products are introduced with so much pomp and show that one thinks that this might be ‘different’, this might actually ‘work’. Well, it seldom happens.
