A month ago, my wife started acting a bit suspicious, but after supporting me for god knows how many years, I felt she deserved it.

One fine morning on the 18th June, she threw a bomb shell “I am buying a car and it will be delivered in a week - 10 days” Whoa! where did you get the money? Which car? Why now? all were thrown out of the window and I knew it was a losing battle for me.

My enthusiasm waned a bit when I heard ‘Indica’ not that the car was bad, in fact like it much better than the old esteem and have traveled quite a lot in it; but more from the service horrors that I had heard being related. But I felt extremely happy and proud of her, because this was her first car bought with her own savings, in her own name. Read the rest of this entry »

I had earlier blogged about my problem with Costa Coffee here

After sending a text & reminder to their CEO Virag Joshi who promised action, it took them more than a week to remove the offending part of tile. Post this their Regional Head Kaushik called up to invite me to visit them again etc. Being in no mood to entertain, I had however promised that if and when I felt like it, would visit one of their cafe and contact him.

Finally, on a store visit last week at Inorbit Malad, waiting for someone to arrive, decided to have coffee at Costa. Ordered my regular and gave my card for payment, telling the person at the cash, that someone would be joining me soon. I was told that they would collect it together.

After we had finished, went to settle at the cash, but was informed that I would have to pay cash, which normally should not have been an issue, however had used up most of the cash for fuel earlier. When I expressed helplessness, was told that somebody would accompany me to the ATM for withdrawl, which was a no starter, on account of not having an ATM card.

This is when the two young lads - Sunil & Aasif - won my heart ” Sir, don’t worry, please settle next time when you visit” Mind you, I am NOT a regular at Inorbit Malad.

The friend who was meeting me turned up & I quickly borrowed and settled the due, besides writing a note for Kaushik.

Same company, different locations, different service, how does a brand target & maintain consistency?

I have been patronizing the Arrow brand since they launched, maybe in 1994. I used their bespoke collection, which was discontinued without even a communiqué to their so called Aristocracy club; they discontinued their big tall with the same attitude; cloth became
thinner, buttons cheaper, different, I still hung on. They always had ‘low or no stocks’ of size 48” citing variety of reasons.

A couple of years ago, some problem about the product, had made me
write to them, with their Area Manager responding and trying to sort out problems, not completely, but at least it happened.

A year ago, their Bandra store called up saying please pick up shirts
of your size, since the sale would commence soon. I went over and
picked up some 20+ shirts, tried out all of them, some were baggy or length was incorrect, till finally I was left with 12+ shirts, in which 2 favorite colours – blue, pink grey were extremely baggy, the store manager promised to alter and asked me to pick up the
next day.

Promptly they called up off I went, pleased with the customer
service approach of the brand. And the nightmare began – they had changed the size by cutting the sides making the shirts useless. Again
the apologies flowed and promises made.

Like clockwork I would call up every 15-20 days to enquire if my replacement shirts had come, 2-3-6 months passed, till I had finally given up, when one fine day I received a mailer and wrote to the email id. No response, however the
store called saying they had received one pink shirt and I could pick
it up.

I rushed to the store took the shirt and also another colour just so
that my account could be closed, besides this two half sleeve shirts
also were made available. Fool that I am did not try out the shirts.

Two weeks later, today morning, rushing for a meeting carried the pink shirt to wear it under the jacket. Mid-morning changing into the shirt realized with a horror that the sleeves were so tight that I resembled a south Indian heroine.

This time I intend to take it up with their top brass. I know they
would just apologize, say QC was at fault etc. etc. but not give a
damn, because there is a sucker born every minute who would pay that horrendous amount just because it is a brand.

I had first got hooked to Costa Coffee a couple of years ago and have staunchly defended it against a lot of friends, who asked me try out
Gloria Jeans, Coffee Beans, Barista etc. because the coffee was
consistently good, convenient, close to office, stores that I have to visit.

But an incident happened yesterday, that prompted me to write about it. Lucky Bhatt aka @bhatnaturally was in town from Bangalore and we had planned to meet up at Costa coffee in Phoenix. Whilst waiting for him with @b50 @shamikv we decided to have coffee. Asking them to hold a table, I went to place the order, wanting to prove a point to @b50 that Costa would serve good cold coffee without sugar.

Walking back to the table, saw a man pushing his chair from the table from the corner of my eye, as also an aluminium strip jutting out where Costa had used it to economize on the wooden flooring. It
snagged my trouser and baam I went down in a ugly fall; trying to save
the edge of table hitting my eye, put the entire pressure on my left
knee. Managed to get up, with people running up enquiring whether I
was hurt. @b50 raised his voice to one of the service boys, who just
beat the strip down and wandered off.

We sat finishing our coffee, trying to gather my wits and checking the swelling before leaving.

The issue here is not that I was hurt – maybe I was at fault, which
I was not; maybe the strip, floor was not maintained properly, which it should have been, given the fact the brand coffee charges; but the fact that the attitude of the staff – no one even bothered to look at what the commotion was, come up to enquire “whether I was hurt” offered a
cold compress – to act humanitarian, which one would expect from a brand like Costa.

When I tweeted about this, a couple of people said that they knew the
manager would I like to speak to him; whilst some said “sue them”.
If I were in the UK or USA, I would have done so, not for money but
for the attitude, however I definitely want to bring this to their CEO/President’s notice and see whether they have a semblance of customer service feedback mechanism at all.

I normally do not like to order pizzas from Pizza hut as home delivery, however the family has always ordered and last Friday, the urge to order in after an exhausting day was extremely strong.

So I was designated as the order giver, with specific instructions. Called up Pizza Hut.

PH: Thank you for calling…………
ME: Hello, my number is 26xxxxxx and I would like to place an order please.
PH: Sorry sir our systems are down, may I have your address please.
ME: Can you please take my order
PH: Sorry sir, our systems are down, may I have your address
ME: Sure, but can you first take my order
PH: May I have your address
ME: Of course, I’ll provide that since you would need to deliver, however take my order down.
PH: Your address
ME: (Sternly raising my voice) Young man, Please take the order and then ask for the address.
PH: OK, as you wish
ME: ABC pizza; xyz bread; what is the offer of the day etc…..& I have xxx coupon
PH: Ok sir, your address please
ME: *deeply sighing* 111, abcde, mmnop, opp. aaa,
PH: Sorry sir, our system shows that this address is in Goregaon on the link road.
ME: That must be the same building name, but I do not stay there
PH: No Sir, your address in our system is there only.
ME: (Beginning to lose my cool) Young man, on one hand your system is not working, so that you cannot accept my telephone number; on the other hand, when I am providing my address, you say it is listed in another suburb altogether.
Can I speak to your superior.
PH: Yes Sir, but can I have your correct address.

I disconnected and ordered from my neighborhood shetty - delivery time - 15 minutes.

And this is where the story ends, MNC, high expectations, let down and by the by did not even bother to call back, but I guess ‘Why bother with a person, who is not a regular, does not know his address?’ How about you? Have you had a similar experience? Do share it.

I have been a long and mostly satisfied customer of our national carrier, due to having had to fly to sectors that they only flew, options available, and my belief that the travel period was totally ‘ME’ time. I hate to eat on flight, hate pompous self important people sitting next to me opening their laptops only to play solitaire or scrabble, try to start business conversations etc. (All this from a person, whose bread butter was Sales Marketing:))

So over the years flying on IC/AI fell under my ‘Theory of Least Expectations’, because it was always late, food was bad, business people did not travel (so got better seats) etc. But was perfect for me.

Also the accrued benefits to me by way of points, upgrades, offers were unbeatable.

Then came a lull of couple of years, when my travel just stopped.

I did travel intermittently but as a guest/consultant, airlines were not my choice so - Indigo, Spicejet, KingFisher - all were tried.

Last week having flown to Aurangabad on Jet Konnect, had an option to return on Air India so jumped at the chance.

And boy, what a surprise - smooth check in, comfortable seats, good service; lovely cookies, coffee; on time take off and landing besides better deal price wise!

What more can one want? At least not me.

So begins my love again.

I am not a Jet lover or traveler, however business exigencies forced me to travel last week on Jet to Aurangabad (being the only morning flight)

The entire previous day, web checkin was not working, though finally managed at around 1 am in the morning for the 6 am flight.

Reached the airport, felt like trying to enter Virar local, except there was scented BO, given the fact that there was a line, right till outside of everyone wanting to enter the airport.

Inside was no better, some 5-6 jet staffers waving their hands, walkie talkies like gymnasts or traffic constable at Dahisar check post.

On the web check in it had said, that I could go straight to counter 63 which incidentally was empty. Then began a tug and war with one of the staff bent on pushing me to some other counter. Finally managed to check in and with 1 hour left was being pushed to the security and gate.

Once boarded, found that all the overhead bins were occupied, not that I needed them, but still. The seat was a nightmare come true - reminded me of ‘Baby’ the tuk tuk of Bangladesh where you actually end up with your face between your legs, trying to breathe and live.

They seem to have cut corners on seats - squeezing in a couple of additional rows; followed by seat belts - or else why would they announce extension belts availability?

In this 45 minute flight they also tried to fit in sale of juice, breakfast, snacks - which meant that people occupying the aisle seat had to watch their elbows.

On landing, the luggage took it’s own time, in spite of that being the only flight at that time of the morning. So some rules to fly Jet Konnect:

1) Do not carry hand baggage, if you do rush to your seat the moment gates are opened.
2) Opt for aisle seat only if you are short, thin or can squeeze in the seat.
3) Carry your own extension seat belt in case there are more than 4-5 people that require it.
4) Learn to become a contortionist in case you forget to keep money in your top pocket, in case you want to buy.

Hopefully, they will learn that you cannot have the same attitude as a full service airline!

Post updated on 29/11/2010 at the bottom

I have written about my need to purchase an IFB dish washer here which ended on the 5th November.

During the Divali holidays, my wife surfing realized that there was an offer for the same IFB machine on Indiatimes.com with an added benefit of some freebie and so after the discussion “Indiatimes does not have a good reputation of service delivery etc. etc.” Her response being, “I send small gifts to the US and they are able to manage”, being left with no option booked the product on 7th November and then we went out.

A couple of days later, my wife logged in to be shocked, since Indiatimes had canceled the order, reason “We were unable to verify”.

I tweeted about this and @baxiabhishek said @anaggh You might want to point that out to @urbaneye. I did so and got a reply asking me to email to him, which I did so.

He helped out by asking a colleague, who probably looked after operations to revert to me. In the meantime, I had updated the profile details with residence & mobile number and booked the product again.

To my shock, the same cancellation, same answer and then the trouble started, with Mr. Jaspreet Babrah responding that the numbers are not visible to them (in spite of screen shots sent at different times); Dual verification for safety (right, but not communicated anywhere on the site and when the CEO of the company flags a complaint, does not make a difference, all are equal).

In despair, I sent a mail, tweeted, procured @urbaneye mobile number and called him yesterday afternoon, who again promised that he would get someone to look into this and revert. It’s been 24 hours and there has been no response or assistance.

I guess they have enough suckers to worry about someone like me. What would you do in a scenario like this?

23/11 Mr. Jaspreet called me a couple of days back, meanwhile my wife had booked it again. But post that no call, in spite of his repeatedly assuring me that he would be in constant touch.

29/11 Whilst the issue is still being sorted out, the experience provided by both India times & IFB is something that I would never recommend. It is my opinion that the exclusivity means the customer can bugger off.

Updated post on 20th November 2010 at the end.

I had been meaning to gift my wife a dish washer for our anniversary that is in November and she had narrowed it down to IFB brand.

Whilst checking out their retail outlets, we happened to check out the website, which was supposedly e commerce enabled, with an offering of a deal too, hence on the 3rd November decided to order from there, and my travails began.

Every time I managed to reach the payment gateway and it hung. After trying the entire day, called up their customer service, who gave me another Kolkatta number, which kept on ringing for a couple of hours, before actually being picked up on the 10th try. The person sounded as if “Why the hell do you want to disturb my sleep, after macher jhol”; promptly said “Oh this is website, I shall get someone to call you up in the next 5 minutes”

Finally after a couple of hours, tried again, did not get through so left a complaint on the website.

Sometime on 8th or 9th afternoon, they called up my wife and asked “Do you want assistance”

I wonder what kind of a service would they actually provide, however it is difficult to convince my wife to opt for some other dish washer, so the fight still goes on, though I have no clue when, if at all they would assist or deliver.

29/11 - Even after writing in their contact, feedback, president’s page, they are yet to revert in any kind whatsoever. Guess they believe that once the customer has bought, then he has no option, so why bother.

On the 7th of November, someone made a purchase of Rs. 12000/- + via ngpay on my wife’s credit card, which we came to know only on the 11th November.

My first reaction was to call the bank, block the card so that further damages could be avoided. Post that late in the night I tweeted about the problem, which got RT a couple of times and people referred it to @ngpay.

Surprisingly, the first thing next morning I got a call from Siddharth from Ngpay, who took down the details and explained what had happened and asked me to raise a dispute with the issuing bank who would sort it out, however in case I was interested in knowing the details of the person who had used it, then they would require a FIR (first information report) filed and a copy sent to them.

An impressive use of twitter and more importantly responding to the customer, which means as a brand they are listening.

If I ever decide to start buying through the mobile portal, I would sure give them a shot.