My Samsung Story

If you're a regular reader of the blog, you'd know that I had got myself a Galaxy SL i9003 a few months back. I was pretty happy with the phone initially, primarily because on paper its a great device.

A couple of weeks back, however I noticed something. The top right corner of the touchscreen was coming off. It was pretty clear that the pasting/glueing was to blame for it. Simultaneously a few marks were starting to appear on the undersurface of the touschreen, as a result no amount of wiping the panel would remove the marks. It was very clear to me that I was using a defective handset and feared that more problems may be lurking around the corner. I wanted the phone replaced. 

I was left with no other option but to call the customer care of Samsung. There I met with a rude shock. "We give you a warranty and not a guarantee" blared the customer care executive. Well I pretty much knew what the terms and conditions said and the last thing I needed was the company guy telling me that I had no legal ground for my claim. All of a sudden, I went from being a Samsung customer to almost a legal opponent fighting against the company in a court of law.

Frustrated, angry and furious at the response, I started posting status updates and tweets regarding this treatment of the company to a customer. Finally they sort of gave in, after incessant calls to the customer care service. Samsung cared enough to give me a standby phone for use while they took my i9003 for replacement. A nice touch indeed.

I now have received a fresh i9003 from Samsung. 

An effort from the company I thoroughly appreciate but also wish I didn't have to go through such a huge process of trying to explain my situation to various people at Samsung.

Shocked, stunned, and utterly bewildered

Customer service in most sectors in India is pathetic to say the least. The so-called customer care executives are ill-prepared, sometimes ill-behaved (the callers are supposed to be ill behaved not them for god's sake! Although I strongly protest rude behaviours of customers with the executives), and most frequently plain ignorant! They have absolutely no clue about what they are doing and behave as though they are doing the customers a favour by giving them proper customer service.

The thing is, the concept of customer service has been alien to the Indian way of life until the huge economic, social and the paradigm cultural change/explosion which took place in the late nineties and the early 21st century. Since then the country has never had to look back, economically, politically, strategically and in various other aspects. But unfortunately, the sloppy Indian "chalta hai" (it happens) attitude clearly hasnt got accustomed to it even now!

And why do I say all this? Here's the story. I was unhappy with my Vodafone GRPS and wanted a more stable GPRS with less server outages. The only other option I had was Airtel, and I decided to go for it. What a stupid mistake that was!

Its almost a day since I took the connection, as of now, my GPRS services havent still been activated, although I have already paid them for my GRPS for this month! And to add to my woes, the Customer Care isnt responding to my calls! The stupid guy simply hung up while I was speaking! And to my utter surprise I found that I could no longer reach the customer care because apparently they had blocked my access to their support number. I later learnt that once such a thing happens the customer care is usually out of reach upto one week!

I am just stunned at how insanely nonsensical and callous the customer care folks can be! How on earth are companies paying money for these guys! I know I'm being harsh, but just imagine being stuck with a new SIM, with an inactive GPRS (after paying them money for it) and not being able to do anything about it, coz the customer care is dead! Simply dead! For god's sake why even have these offices if the company's not willing to give proper support to its customers.

Am really shocked, stunned and utterly bewildered at this apathy.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net