Customer Support Queueeeeeeeeeee…………..!!!???

11:55 AM IST on 5th Dec 2007:Here I have an example of how a customer for a reputed (?) Webhosting services company in India …keeps the customers in a  queue (for ever!?). The technology of customer support sometimes might scare the customers away to search for better service providers…I am sure many of the folks use the customer support telephone lines only to receive a so-called ’sweat’ voice but not actual “resolution” to the problem or support information. I just have come across one service provider who may think they have sophisticated TroubleTicketing system in place…Given below is the  email (autogenerated) that comes to you when a TT is opened. Most often,the content of this email would be to say that “abstract activities..” such as “necessary action has been taken…” etc., Surprisingly neither the action would have been taken, nor the problem has been solved. They also state that if not satisfied TT can be reopened; Well there could be many sophisticated software(s)  around the world which would have been formally launched and being ‘tested’ by the customers…i mean the customers would be doing “unpaid” tester job for them whenever they use those so-called sophisticated “Trouble Ticketing systems”. I really meant what I wrote. The TT cannot be reopened at all …that is what i realized when i religiously tried to open the control panel..So I called up the tech support of that service provider and waited for 15 minutes being in the queue …just to ask them how do i “reopen” the TT…Tech support folks ask me to wait for their response and asked me to hold the line while they nicely drop the line on the otherside!!! Is this what a customer of that service provider deserves??? If I have patience I can choose to re-enter the QUEUEEEEEE…..again only to get dropped again!!!?????

How do we (as customers) support this kind of service-providers???

———————————————email response which i referred in the above paragraph———————

Solution:

As per your query, this is to inform you that needful measures has been done. Kindly check at your end. Do contact us for further assistance

However, if you are not satisfied with the solution given above, you may re-open the query from your panel.

Should you require any further assistance:

Call Customer Support (24×7) at: 1860 180 5555 (via BSNL/MTNL)

OR

Log a query online

Please Note: For a quick response to your support related calls, please make sure that you have your Trouble Ticket Number and CRN ID with you. You can generate your Trouble Ticket Number by entering your query online.

We look forward to a long and fruitful association with you. Best Regards, Team Net4 www.net4.inThis is an auto-genarated mail. Please do not reply.

Lead,follow,Change,timing??

Well, after I started blogging I thought for a while how the internet and wordpress blog allowed us to follow a ‘great’ path. Blogging enabled most of the people not only ‘to express’ but also to garner ‘followers’ or ‘folks who concur’ with the blogger’s views/expressions. To follow or trace you may need a path..and generally that is set by someone who can be called a leader. Statistics as a mathematical subject explains why the numbers , sometimes, influence a follower’s decision to ‘follow’. Most often than not, the numbers indicate that there has been a large following or appreciation or acceptance for a particular topic/subject/activity/theory/thing and more and more people try to taste that and either decide to continue liking that or take another direction by following another similar thing or create something on their own. If we go back to pre-internet era, the way the ‘leader’ influenced, of course with the help of that days technologies,beliefs,value system,economy etc., the strategies were very different and the numbers were also not that huge when you compute the followers ( i must double check the facts before I confirm the statement). As of today, with the technological innovations, value systems, beliefs, a leader is born every minute. Most of the people wants something ‘different’. So a change is ‘welcome’ for the people. This drives the decision_making_engine of a typical follower. … this influences the followers and new leaders .  Gone are the days when the  ‘change’ was not welcome.

Does it give any logic for the nature of ‘future followers’? Well, I speculate that when the ‘frequency’ of the changes become a hindrance or nuisance to have a steady ‘being’ then of course the ‘rate of change’ would be throttled!!??

Are you Happy?

I wonder how many people ever thought of just being happy ‘always’? In my opinion, it is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Happiness is very personal. It cannot be compared to any other emotional feeling or activity of either self or another person. Happiness resides very close to ‘positive’ thinking (in fact at the root of it) if one tries to locate it!! At times you may have everything you wished for but happiness. At times, you may have just simple happiness but nothing else!!If one tries to get the real statistics of how many folks are ‘happy’ at the moment all over the world, the number you would see, may be astonishingly low. A person in financial difficulties can experience the happiness, only if (s)he understands what the real happiness is and where it is available. A person with ill-health can also feel happy only if (s)he knows what the real happiness is and whether (s)he has it irrespective of ill-health. One might plan to get ‘rich’ and can have various paths to get the riches (s)he planned…but if (s)he lacks the skill to retain the happiness, which is highly fluid in nature, (s)he would end up chasing ( or longing for ) it forever. Being Happy is very Easy. Did I say it ‘is’ difficult earlier?. No matter what the person does for the living, no matter what the person’s health condition is, no matter where the person is currently living, the happiness is always with the person…and within the person. It can be found if you can spot it!! The trick,to retain the happiness you already possess, is constantly changing or ever-changing and the best part the trick expects each of us to understand is ….happiness is like air we breathe …and the sleep one enjoys. It is all over …be happy always and add a comment how you could do ‘that’ first time and how you could repeat ‘that’ …’being happy’ every time

I am feeling Happy!!

Application for Telecom Service and Cancellation Requests

Did you guys know how easy it is to apply for a telecom connection with service providers such as Airtel in India??

I have experience to share with one and all. Well, I do not mean to expose any of the short-comings in the policies or procedures of the telecom service providers through this blog, but I would like to question why a consumer is taken for granted??

I wished to apply for a new GSM connection with Airtel. I submitted all the necessary forms (duplicate i guess) and then they provided all types of reference numbers to track their sales order. I used the phone for quite sometime and I decided to cancel the connection!!. Billing cycles are understood only by Airtel and they are hardly explained to consumers and if at all they explain they hardly take feedback on whether the customer has any comment to say on their billing process. So consumer must be smart enough to understand that the deposit he or she pays towards the new connection(s) hardly comes back to him/her eventhough it is refundable. You maybe wondering why that is so?? Hang on!! I am gonna explain that in detail..it is all mentioned in the ‘cancellation process’!! Did the consumer ever reads that i do not know?? Anyway the experience goes like this: I am ready to request to submit cancellation request. I reach nearest Airetel Franchisee and enquire about the procedure. There are 2 ways to go about. You could be asked to call customer care and submit your request over the phone for cancellation. Then they would say that the process would take 10 working days …etc., then comes another ’sale’ game from Airtel. Firstly Airtel does not seem to have any practice of providing ‘a cancellation’ confirmation number and acknowledgement document which can be used as legal document. Without any such document, the consumer has to rely on the reference number Airtel customer care provides to the consumer.   Such reference numbers are not legal documents which state that the service provider is committing to ‘disconnecting’ the service and line. You may be wondering what’s all this fuss about?? Ok if your Airtel GSM line subscription comes up with some 1999/- (Rs 1999/) plan you would have paid around so much amount as refundable deposit. Please be prepared to lose that amount even if you submit the cancellation request promptly!! I would like some math whizkid to explain to me in which case I will definitely get my deposit back!! so now imagine if Airtel could retain the refundable deposits from their millions of subscribers …assuming if there are about 100,000 (minimum) disconnections/cancellations per year, Airtel could easily make 300 times of that number (it could be anywhere running into Crores of Rupees??..i am not too good in maths!!), assuming that on average each subscriber/consumer is supposed to get Rs 300/- at the minimum if the cancellation is made effective. If someone explains the billing cycle fundamentals etc., then at least Airtel can walk away with 50 % of the above mentioned amount.

Am I missing anything??Is my understanding is correct?? Any wise soul in India who is already Airtel subscriber can send me few details so I would be able to get knowledge on this entire process

Traffic on Indian Roads, Specially in Bangalore

Traffic on Indian Roads, Specifically in Bangalore:

Many of the netizens would have read about an incident in Kolkata, where a Techie was in pool of Blood before he breathed his last!!

Nothing is enough……Money not enough!! More roads not enough!!!…Wide Roads not Enough!! More money not enough!!…More luxuries not enough!!! Want MORE!!

Well this is the reality,whether you like it or not.

Indian Roads are the Roads some of which were used by many generations. Earlier, people used the roads to walk, later they started using the bullock-carts, later two-wheelers,3-wheelers,four-wheelers etc., All ‘multi-wheelers’ are increasing in the number while the capacity of the roads that can carry all these change at a slower rate than the users of the roads. The Roads in Bangalore are narrower in many places and many of the roads are without median/dividers. Shop keepers on either side of the Roads would prefer not to have the road divider/barricade so they can move between various shops easily. Even the people who walk on the roads would ‘not’ prefer the barricade or divider so they can cross the road when there is ‘no’ threatening traffic on ‘at least’ one side of the Road. Till something goes ‘wrong’ everyone thinks it is ‘win-win’ arrangement to ‘not’ having the dividers. Even if one is constructed, some wise (?) person would break that divider (when the sun is BUSY is western part of the Globe) in a way similar to robbing his/her ‘dad’s’ pocket in the night…

If there are folks who know about the data packets flowing on the networks..they can easily visualize the probability of an accident on the roads. The capacity of the network and network devices is increasing as the technology advances. Also the number of network usage and average network usage is also increasing!! Why then we do not hear about ‘packet loss’ as often as we hear about accidents. Or Do we?

If only the packet that was lost contained ‘useful’ life, netizens would look at the packet and mourn for the same!!? And ask the internet policy groups, other users of net to have some consideration for the ‘life’.

It is not fair to blame any one or any system for the loss one suffers. Just for simple reason any system could also bring enormous benefit to other users( we call them lucky users, as long as no mishap happens). I,sometimes, envy the Technocrats, mathematicians and scientists as they could model new mechanisms or formulae in a defined environment. It might not be so easy in real life. Just like the way there are ‘noise reduction’ systems, Echo cancellors without which the ’signal’ or packet could suffer ‘loss’, in real-life innovative mechanisms are to be found and practised so as to reduce the mishaps. Obviously we cannot make the noise or the causes of ‘accidents’ to be zero overnight, but we can control them. And that is what I guess the developed world has done to reduce the ‘occurence’ of the accidents on the road, in a much similar way that the ‘packet collisions’ on the net have been managed!!?

So we, the users of the road need to lead the change….

The Story Of Gajanana

Om Maha Ganadhipathaye Namah

Here follows what Mahamuni Sootha described ; The origins of Lord Gajanana and the bad effects of sighting the moon and the necessary procedures to be followed to eliminate or come out of these bad effects.

Once upon a time a Rakshasa (demon) who resembles a Gaja (Elephant) underwent a rigorous tapas (meditation) in order to impress Lord Shiva and seek his blessings. The elated Lord Shiva appeared to his devotee and inquired the Rakshasa about the reason behind such rigourous penance. Gajasura requested Lord Shiva to remain within his stomach.

Lord Shiva known for his humble blessings for his devotees, fulfilled his devotees’ wish by entering Gajasura’s stomach and staying there happily.

Meanwhile, Goddess Parvathi started searching for Lord Shiva as she could not find him in ‘Kailash’(The heavenly abode of Lord Shiva). After a long search, she realised that Lord Shiva is in the stomach of Gajasura. She wanted her husband to be released out of Gajasura.So, she prayed to Lord Vishnu requesting him for the release of her husband.

She was confident that Lord Vishnu can do the needful as he rescued her husband earlier from the clutches of Bhasmasura, the demon. Lord Vishnu consoled Goddess Parvathi and said that he would try his level best. Afterwards, Vishnu called for a meeting with the rest of the gods such as Brahma etc. In the meeting, it was decided that the best way to save Lord Shiva is to impress Gajasura is to  perform an ensemble along with a a decorated ox (Shiva’s Vehicle). With that suggestion, the Nandi (Ox) was decorated very nicely with a lot of bells around its neck. It is a well known practice to decorate an ox in such a nice way and play the shehnai (Indian Flute) as well as the Melam (Indian Drums).

When the drums along with other musical instruments are played, the ox gets excited and starts shaking its body, head and stamping its legs. Such a performance or dance by the ox is used to thrill many demons and especially Gajasura. So, Vishnu along with the rest of the Gods with the other musical instruments accompanied the decorated Nandi to the Gajasurapura, th town of Gajasura.

With such a great dance and music performed in front of Gajasura, he was thrilled and impressed and asked Vishnu who is in the form of the lead performer,what they would like to have from Gajasura. It used to be ‘Dharma’ to agree and give what was asked, in those days by Kings.

So, Vishnu as a response to Gajasura, introduced his team starting with the decorated ox as the vahana of Lord Shiva.He also said that the Nandi is wishing to have a ‘Darshan’ of its Lord, Shiva. So, the team had come here to Gajasurapura to see Lord Shiva and request Gajasura to release Lord Shiva.With that,Gajasura realised that the team leader is none other than Lord Vishnu himself, who was known to eliminate the Rakshasas(demons) and thought that it would be difficult to escape from Vishnu. So, he prayed to Lord Shiva who was in his stomach, to bless him in such a way that his head would be ‘pooja worthy’ in all the three worlds (triloka) and his skin to be used by Lord Shiva himself after Gajasura dies.Vishnu accorded to his request and then encouraged the Nandi to do his job , of getting his Lord. Vishnu increased his pace of chanting and playing of music in order to excite the Nandi to do that. The Nandi, with great power, plunged on to Gajasura, who did not resist much to the act of the Nandi. The Nandi could break open the stomach of Gajasura and had his darshan of Lord Shiva and released him. That’s how the significance of Gajasura’s head being used or prayed was described in the Sacred Texts.

HOP and HOP the IT jobs in India

I am not HR consultant and I am not IT recruiter either. But I have been observing the IT industry for quite a few years and I wanted to share my observations and would like to seek from the public their experiences or trciks.

Of late there are many Asian companies started their shops in India and especially in Bangalore. There has been shortage of IT resources…but more importantly shortage for IT recruiters. So these companies hire people who wear many hats and perform IT recruitment , Administration, operations management etc., This lucky so-called-recruiter accesses the popular Job portals such as Naukri, MonsterIndia and advertises for vacant positions inside the company. Candidates keep checking the job portals quite often or they get job alerts quite often!!. Some of the Asian companies may not be full-fledged product development companies nor they are well established consultancies in software domain. Similarly some of the job seekers are not very serious to join every company that advertises for the position. The company sometimes get a short project and projects saying they have BIG road map for the growth of the organization and the same way the Job seekers say they are very excited to join this new company within next few days. After the job advertisement the cycle of phone calls and interviews start. Let us bring that first-time-IT-recruiter of recently opened Asian companies in Bangalore and India. The recruiter is excited to see the response for his ad in the job portal and communicates with his senior management that they can go ahead and plan for the successful delivery of the projects to the clients of the company. Job seekers are not dumb!! They attend the interviews knowing that the MNC in which they are working is definitely better than the one in which they may decide to join (or not!). The Recruiter completes the ’so-called-HR round’ which discusses in most of this kind of cases, just the CTC, notice period, relocation convenience etc., and makes an offer to the job seeker. The Recruiter may be short-listing the candidates in the ratio of 4:1 if he has knowledge about the typical IT Job market!! Else he might go with 1:1 ratio. Whereas the Job seeker (obviously!!?) will have couple of interviews lined-up and tries to pick up the offer extended by this Asian company ( i am using this Asian company, as I observed this trend with many of the small companies which opened their shops in Bangalore, india recently to make money out of growing software solutions business). The recruiter thinks that he is not giving any hardcopy of the offer and he thinks that the email offer may not be used by the Job seeker to negotiate a better offer with Job seeker’s next trials. It has been long story…nah..well job seekers are smart and ask any of the 2-10 year experienced person in IT industry …how they get the salary increased within just couple of months of joining an MNC or well established Product Development companies. Job seekers are SMART…Job hoppers!! if you are reading this blog and have smarter moves taht you have employed or proposed to use..please share for the benefit of many young IT folks

More later guys and gals, ladies and gentleman

Experience of being a customer in India

More often than not, i was asked whether there was any difference between a consumer and customer. Many of friends gave me definitions and their perspectives for each of those terms. I have been both a consumer and customer on many occasions (well in fact every minute in daily life) in India. I may not able to comment or compare the true experience of a customer in other parts of india, but i have much experience in India to write few lines about it and i can continue to do the same and hence i started this blog. Please read on, with a recent experience:

A customer support executive from a reputed international bank calls me and confirms that they are talking to me only During the phone call they ask me whether I am interested to get my monthly credit card statement in email form. I responded saying, it is good idea but then I questioned them why can’t the bank folks send me an email about the same. They had received my email in the application form when I opened a bank account with them. Apparently this executive said, (s)he is from a different department and hence (s)he does not know about my email id. I politely gave my email Id and requested for an email communication. Then the executive says (s)he needs my date of birth to confirm ’sending’ email to me. This is the place I thought of ‘educating’ the executive and asked why that information is needed?? When the bank initiated the call they should be knowing that they are reaching the right customer and why do they still some more information from me to confirm. I also explained that it is the norm for the phone calls originating from the bank’s customer , the bank executive asks for ‘date of birth’ or other such unique information to proceed further on the transaction. That’s how the call ended and the customer support executive ‘got’ educated. I receive an email reply from the bank promptly, regarding the statement copy being sent to email.

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