Tele-topia!

The enormous strides made by the Telecom Industry in India in the last 20 years are phenomenal to say the least. We need to applaud the industry on having become truly global and competitive today. Here is a “Before” and “After” comparison of what it was in 1988 and today

Before

• You would get an irritating “Beep-Beep” or the engaged tone when you tried calling a number. 
  
• You would need to shout at the top of your voice, making a conversation difficult. 
  
• You would get disconnected once in a while.
• You could build your biceps lifting those heavy ebonite handsets. Your fingers could drill holes in trains, like Mithunda, from all the heavy dialing.
• Customer support was some guy taking 5 hour lunch breaks in a local telephone exchange. The security guard would inform you that “Saab abhi lunch pe hain”. [Sir is on his lunch now!]
  
• You would need to wait 30 minutes to see someone in the local telephone exchange for your complaints.
  

After

• Now you get a prompt message on your mobile screen saying “Network Busy” 
  
• Now your voice breaks making conversations really spicy. “Hello, how are you?” goes like “Hell … ow … ae … ou”. Films like “One Missed Call” showcases the virtues of such calls. 
  
• Now almost all your calls get dropped, but thanks to speed dialing your problems have a workaround. 
  
• You now have a wireless handset that keeps your ears hot and sweaty and helps your brain produce lots of abnormal nerve cells, thus improving your IQ. 
  
• Customer support now is a guy armed with a headset and a computer system that takes 5 hour lunch breaks. They now politely inform you that their “System is down”. 
  
• Now you get to hear “All our executives are busy attending to calls” followed by music-that-can-trigger-epileptic-seizures during your 30 minute wait.
  

This kind of progress is unprecedented and unanticipated. We have come many a mile since the bribe-happy-friendly-neighborhood linesman. We have truly entered an era of tele-topia.

Singur Matrimonials!

Just caught this very interesting matrimonial advertisement on a news site. 

Singur Girl

Marry Well Settled Singur Girl Register Free! Search, Chat & Marry

Haha. What next? Marry Well Settled SEZ-Proposed-in-2020-but-farmers-agitating-already Girl? [Sorry if that sounds sexist!]

Suddenly places of discontent and protests are becoming attractive destinations for “Alliance-Seekers”. Now what could be the reason for that? I racked my brains for what could be the top five reasons!

• The to-be-bride was featured in numerous news videos, effectively making her a small screen star
  
• The Alliance-Seeker has ambitions in Politics
  
• The Alliance-Seeker is a die hard fan of Mamata ‘Bandh’-opadhyay, Arundhati Roy and the likes
  
• Marketing managers at the matrimonial site have taken market segmentation a little too seriously
  
• The Alliance-Seeker would either get a hefty compensation or an assured job
  

Maybe.

Air India – Achieving Customer Nausea!

Customer Nausea is, as you might have guessed, at the other end of the spectrum from Customer Delight! Striving hard to achieve this major milestone is Air India. They have turned convention on it’s rear-end.

I was in Mumbai this weekend, to receive a relative of mine, flying in from Kolkata on an Air India flight.

Gosh, the flight was over 45 minutes late!

Funny, we think a 45-minute-late flight is not only pardonable but also a sign of improving things when it comes to the public sector airlines! Happy as I was, I started discussing the enormous changes that the Aviation Ministry was bringing in to modernize our airports. A rather boring conversation for my wife though.

Haha. Air India had another trick up its sleeve. It wouldn’t have given up so easily when it comes to inconveniencing its passengers. It just could not. We know it takes about 20 minutes for people to leave the airport once the flight has landed. But when that stretched to 30 minutes I attributed it to all the construction that was happening at the terminal.

The 30 minutes stretched to 1 hour. The official response was that the luggage was “Arriving in another 10-15 minutes”. We all know the 48-hour clock PSUs refer to when talking time. So we felt that by 30 minutes we should be happily on our way. Conversation had changed to how taxes are paying for lazy government officials. And my wife was participating.

After the end of an hour and 30 minutes, luggage still hadn’t arrived from the plane to the conveyor. Official response was still “Arriving in another 10-15 minutes”. The luggage did arrive but not before it took all of 2 hours. The flight from Kolkata to Mumbai was 2 hours 30 minutes, and the luggage took 2 hours to reach the conveyor from the plane. This must be a record of sorts in Customer Nausea!

I now want Laloo as the Minister for Civil Aviation.

The Great “Mobile Store” Fraud!

Be careful, some slick marketing of fraud offers from “The Mobile Store” can get you to buy from “The Mobile Store”. They are offering an assured gift of a 3D2N package in India or abroad at some of the better travel destinations.

Haha. You should know better! I fell into the same fly-trap. Nothing but a meager offer laced with digestive juices … umm “Terms and Conditions”. Conditions which will ensure that you never avail of the so-called free gift worth Rs. 5000.

Condition #1: You get to choose 3 destinations from amongst a list. Send in your preferred check in dates which are not on holidays or during the peak season. This is where your ‘choice’ ends.

Condition #2: You have to travel to the destination they allocate which is usually your third preference. Could be Timbuktu as well.

Condition #3: You have to travel on the date they say you have to. It ‘could’ be one of your preferred check-in dates. Not guaranteed.

Condition #4: You have to stay at the hotel they choose for you. I randomly looked up some of the so called properties they ask you to stay at. And to my pleasant surprise I found them to be little more shanties in the guise of a hotel. One ‘hotel’ did not even have a phone.

Condition #5: They will confirm your booking only 10 days before your check-in date. Leaving you all of 10 days to buy flight or train tickets, ask for leave and pack.

Condition #6: For international holidays, they will confirm your hotel stay only if you send them a copy of your air tickets within 7 days of submitting your application. This means you have to buy air tickets before your stay in that place is even confirmed.

Condition #7: Lastly you have to pay Rs. 600 to have them take you through all this trouble.

This is the mother of all bogus offers, if ever there was one. My recommendation is to stay clear of “The Mobile Store” when buying mobiles. A cash discount is always preferred over offers like this.