Your Call Is Waiting

Ask anyone when they last tried calling a telephone helpline to get a problem resolved, be it to change a mobile phone plan, complain about DTH signals, or just a simple bank account transaction. Chances of finding a happy customer are scarce. The average time per call itself, say experts, is 5 to 15 minutes, which includes navigating the maze of options, reaching a human int­erface, explaining the problem to him/her and getting a response. Consider the number of times people are put on “hold” by the call centre executive to “find a solution”. Most people give up after a couple of minutes and simply hang up.

Ironically, for a country that’s set global standards for call centre-led customer services, India offers one of the worst customer service environments in the world. “India scores 98-99 per cent on international customer satisfaction ratings. Our domestic ratings are nowhere near that. The surprising thing is that the same industry handles both,” says Raman Roy, chairman, Quattro Global Services and widely considered the father of modern call centre services.

Roy cites his own experience of buying an iPod charger through an e-commerce site where the charger produced excess power and burned the iPod. His attempts to get a replacement drew a blank on some frivolous grounds. He is now fighting it out in a consumer court. Worse, there is no organised system or regulator for customer grievance red­ressal and the existing rules are not monitored, leaving the customer helpless at the hands of companies.

The examples are across sectors: a Delhi executive spent five minutes to go through the options and reach a call centre executive to lodge a complaint for his Tata Sky connection. The person at the other end just could not understand the problem and gave pre-set answers to anything he said. The customer finally hung up and called again. Despite that, his complaint was not registered and he had to call again the following day.

The story with government services is much the same. When Outlook tried calling some of these helplines, the experience was similar. The ‘Pension’ helpline repeatedly went unanswered while the ‘Kisan Call Centre’ helpline played a song for 40 seconds before being picked up by an executive who either didn’t understand what was being said or was impatient and hung up. Instead of offering solutions, the ‘Passport Sewa’ helpline asked people to visit the nearest regional passport office or the police station.

Whichever sector or company one looks at, the story is much the same—companies are either ignorant of the quality of service they provide, or are just apathetic to customer woes. Con­sumer activist Achintya Mukherjee, who’s been leading a crusade for Mum­bai telephone users, puts it bluntly, “There are huge deficiencies in the IVR (interactive voice response) system in every sector and you are tossed around or put on hold indefinitely.”

With over 900 million people hooked up, the most complaints are against telecom companies. Interestingly, following a Supreme Court ruling of 2009, telecom users now cannot approach a consumer forum against telecom companies. And regulator TRAI does not entertain individual complaints. That leaves users at the mercy of the service providers. In many cases, calls coming from non-VIP or non-priority customers are simply not put through or complaints not registered at all. This, industry insiders say, arises from the fact that with the huge customer base, telcos rarely care for customers, even if they run the risk of losing a few.

A large part of the problem arises from the lack of competence of call centre staff too. They are either not trained properly, or don’t have the mandate to provide real solutions to people. Most often, respo­n­ses are prefabricated according to ‘likely scenarios’. Anything beyond that and the customers are either put on hold or given replies that do not address their issues.

With call centre activity shifting to sma­ller cities and tier II and III towns, the quality of intervention they offer has dropped drastically because the ope­rat­or’s personal experience horizon shrinks with such a shift. Says a top official from a telecom firm, “We face huge qua­lity issues with call centres. Often, they have scant und­erst­anding of telecom issues and the call centres don’t take care to train them. Problems take a minimum of four days to reach a solution desk when it should happen within hours.”

There is also company apathy. In most cases, the companies look for the cheapest vendor to take the calls. And in many cases, they split the job to a few small companies to cut costs. Most telecom service providers, for instance, are serviced by 5-6 different call centres. So every time you call, it goes to a different vendor and the process starts from scratch. Says consumer activist and lawyer Jehangir Gai, “It is more an attempt to frustrate the customer bec­ause service in India is not a priority. When selling a product, the consumer is king, but after that he is a nobody.”

In the last few years though, the internet has emerged as a new saviour. Says internet evangelist and blogger Nikhil Pahwa, “No matter how much I call customer service, it doesn’t help. But one post on Twitter works.” The internet has also given rise to websites who help consumers get such problems resolved. Says lawyer Ankur Singhla who runs www.akosha.com, a website engaged in such activity, “Any complaint on the int­ernet radiates through people and gets amplified.” Unfortunately, that’s the only silver lining for consumers.

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Problem Areas

Outlook called up key service providers across sectors. The feedback was depressingly familiar: 

• DTH: Multiple options confusing, call centre executives  do not understand problems. Hardware and replacement issues take far too long.
• Telecom: Too many options and keys to press, unclear instructions, long holding time and call centre executives often non-cooperative
• Kisan Call Centre: Automated pick-up but song played for about 40 seconds after which human interface comes up, unable to comprehend issues
• Pension Helpline: Difficult to connect as no one picks up even after several rings
• Banks: Confusing as bank accounts, loans and other bank instruments have a common helpline; difficult to get to a human interface
• Passport seva: Many options but asks callers to visit police station for verification or regional passport office for more information
• Online buying: Buyers have no idea who the actual seller is and getting after-sales service from them, especially on phone, is a nightmare
• Consumer durable sales: Most companies apathetic to consumer complaints. For most firms, responsibility ends once sale is completed.