Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Hum hai na..Gadhe!!!

Every corporate swears and vows on the consumer- with customer care policy and funda neatly and painstakingly printed and hung on to their lobbies and wherever, the new generation ones especially ,really gives you that feeling of majesty.....

Into it,experiencing it, one gets to know that he is in a mess and muddle..

Then the brawl and the battle... fighting with the big marketing guys ( any corporate for that matter) is like fighting with pigs in shit... only we get dirty, the pig in fact is enjoying it..

ABN Amro,Hutch, Nokia,Citi bank,Sify,Idea,Tata ,Fiat, SBI,Airdeccan,ICICI bank......good god....the list as I get from the internet is endless....A to Z ..everyone is there.. it seems to me that everyone is cohesive and integrated when it comes to taking the customer for this bloody ride...
ICICI bank is no doubt the biggest bank in India or the second biggest. It doesnt matter,because it is amazing to see the growth over the years from a meagre lesser known finance company to the one- all pervasive 360 degree banking and finance firm.

now see this....

Sir,
We(myself & my wife) had a very bad experience with reputed ICICI bank.We Got one personal loan on my wife name for 1 lakh rupees &paid around 11 insalments thro ECS(Electronic Clearing Services) in Standard Chartered Bank .Last month we preclosed loan which was taken 11 months before.We paid the preclosure charges & extra interest everything & the entire amount has been settled in one cheque that also from my account.They gave us the acknowledgement for the amount paid & the next day the cheque amount was debitted.
But this month they again debitted the loan amount thro ECS.Banks like ICICI is doing is really bad .Yesterday my wife went to bank & unable to take money for a necessary use.Kindly give your suggestion in this regard
V.Shyam

Hi All,

I'm one of those victims of the ABN AMRO Credit Card trap. one of their agents used come to my office regularly and plead to take a credit card. Finally, I obliged inspite me having credit cards from other organizations. He told me that it was a life time free card. After an year I'm getting monthly statements regarding my annual fee. I paid up all my dues pending with them and wrote to them that I was not interested in continuing any relation with ABN and did call their customer care for closure of the same and also sent couple of emails but there is no response. After 4 months of persuing with ABN on Email they did close and sent me a closure letter, however their CPS called and said that they were sorry and asked me to contine with fresh card and that I should only payup the service charge for activation of new card , so I accepted the sameand paid the service charge. They sent me a fresh card with the increased bill of previous card as well as fresh annual charges for the new card, soi again asked them to close and since then I am being harressed by increased bill, I have not used their credit card even once. They promptly send their monthly statement via email and sms but dont respond to customer queries. Can anyone tell me what should I do? They do not care about customer and not even listen to the problems faced by customer.

Those were two samples of genuine customer complaints and Im sure they still are not attended to ,unless the affected party has taken the course of law. When clients fall into the "talk the talk "category, what can advertising agencies do? what amount of advertising can make the "customer delight" possible? what quality of advertising can actually bring in the "brand salience" as gurus call it..? Can agencies walk away from such clients? For that matter is there any one who is good.. who "walks the talk"?

The Marketing world today, it is argued that, gives the consumer a variety of choices...there by improving his style of living... but doing some introspection ,some self study..isnt it true that in most product categories, the marketers work as a cartel ,together deciding on the price , quality and all such stuff and even the exploitation strategy and impose it on the unwary,gullible consumer. So... if I am fed up with Reliance and jump into Airtel I get the same ,if not worse treatment there. I jump into Hutch and things aint any healthier there too....Ditto every category..names change...but the result is the same every where..every product category...the consumer looks like a grass hopper jumping and jumping..or a imprudent frog caught in the damn, dark well...the choice as the marketer today claims is ridiculous and even bizarre..it is a choice yes..but the alternative that a house wife has between a thief, a dacoit and a rapist..if that is a choice ..then I retire from arguing...
I worked for advertising for sometime and had the good fortune of being with clients who were proactive, who tried not to give room to complaints in the first place and if complaints arose gave an ear to it,decipher it and get it registered so that such thing never repeats itself..But such stuff seemingly has got lost in the clutter of "more and more business" .ICICI bank for instance is a case of "quantity walking over quality" and any genuine complaint you have ( TRY IT YOURSELF) you call the numbers which they give you, they will sound as if they are hearing a complaint of that nature for the first time...your moan is unfamiliar, your grumble is too bad to be true....
Customer care , for some, is about exclamation... OH..My my...Good God..Very Sad.... simply unsympathetic ,unempathetic pretension...That is precisely the reason why even after one month of me closing my home loan with ICICI bank ( Of course due to the unbeleivable and unbearable customer delight I had there)... the loan still was kept in my name ...two EMI's were stolen ( without my consent and I having closed the loan, isnt it stealing?) and I was made to run , beg and plead with every pillar and post, to every Tomand Dick and any one who lifts the phone whenever I call the Customer care...Finally I had to give a complaint to Banking ombudsman citing the RBI rules regarding closure of bank loans, for ICICI to give me back the amount..the letter of 'loan closure is still to come...
when they say...Hum Hai Na...next time ...not withstanding all the beauty and the brains behind the Advertising efforts and the catchy slogan...I get creeps..I simply despise them..and If still bank with ICICI that is simply for want of choice...because I know that my option is between the robber,the dacoit and the burglar..of course all of them with new generation smile and smirk ......

I dont intend to stay a moment, once I have got a better choice.....
Doubt my fidelity..I dont mind.....
Call me a brand slut... I dont care.....
If Brand experiences didnt give me delight, instead an ordeal, I will not be a fan of yours anylonger....

In a lighter vein let me put it this way...

Thank you for calling we care banks Customer Care. Your call is important to us, though not as important as it is to you.

If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, press or say 1.
If you are calling from a rotary-dial phone, please stay on the line while a customer-care representative makes mocking, derisive faces.

Your call may be monitored and/or recorded for staff entertainment purposes. For security reasons, please enter the last four digits of your date of birth, followed by your mother's pet name for your father.

To save us money and expedite the dismissal of customer-care representatives, our express automated-speech response system is now available. To use this system, press 1.

To hear about our value added services press 2..

To Know more on loans press 3..more on banking press 5.....

To speak to a customer-care representative, press 9 and wait.. IF you are lucky some one will talk to you..

To hear these options again, hang up and call back.

Welcome to the express automated-speech response system. Please say your 67-digit personal account number, located on the upper lower left middle corner of the one page of your bill that has gone missing, followed by the # sign. If you thought * was the #sign, say Ding Dong.

Your number is 894375904279643850432759478847686350542356889448590824837698072459. If this is correct, say Yes. If this is not correct, it's your fault. You are mumbling, or have a funny accent.

For payment information, say Payment. If you have calls and charges you don't understand, say bingo. To hear these options again, say wacka wacka wacka!

Please wait, a customer-care representative will be with you shortly, or be short with you, or something. Currently all of our representatives are busy helping dilute our profits. Calls will be answered in the order in which we feel like. Your expected wait time is 42 minutes. Your expected blood pressure is 210/130. You may hear clicks followed by silence. You may hear strange music. You may hear yourself say regrettable things, which may be monitored and/or recorded. For example, our records show that you used the phrase "shit.." during your last call to customer care. This has been noted in your record and will be reflected in the quality of service you receive and the tone of voice of the customer-care representative, should you somehow manage to reach one.

I'm sorry, 0 is not a valid number, even if pushed furiously 11 times in rapid succession. To use our express automated-speech response system, press 1. To hear our website address, press 2. To speak to someone about your anger-management problem, press 3. 3 is not a valid prompt.

Thank you for calling we care bank .

I told you.... only names change..the rest is the same...

Hum Hai na... gadhe..!!!

Add to Technorati Favorites see a related video here http://www.jibjab.com/jokebox/jokebox/jibjab/id/233448/jokeid/68860

No comments:

Related Posts with Thumbnails