Sunday, January 23, 2011

One question too many....

After 4 years of using my Sony Ericsson M600i (yup..the one profiled in Casino Royale), I switched to a Nokia E72 last week. Reviews said this was the best business phone in the market today. I am not getting into a debate on that one.

While setting up the phone without referring to the user manual, I somehow managed to get my SIM blocked. This state is not new to me, since I had achieved the same state with my M600i. So I called up the Vodafone customer service number. After the initial queries, I was directed to the action menu of the IVR. I was surprised to hear that the "Know your PUK" option was the second option. So I choose it and get the IVR read out my PUK. I got my E72 running again. All within 2 minutes. Considering I had a harrowing time during my M600i days to get the PUK from the Agent of Vodafone. This was a very pleasant experience. When I hung up, I was very happy to get my E72 alive so I can proceed on my exploration of the features.

Within a few minutes, I get an SMS from Vodafone:
"Thank you for using Vodafone Interactive Voice Response(IVR) System.Was the required information for your query available on IVR?Reply toll free with YES or NO."

It was very appropriate time from them, and I replied a resounding "YES".

Then I get a second SMS,
"Thank you for your response.Was the IVR menu easy to use?Reply toll free with YES or NO."

Now this was the last straw. It got me pissed off. And I have still not responded to this. This was one question too many. Vodafone should have stopped at the first question. Maybe the next time I call them, they could have asked this. "One question at a time" is my motto that I preach to every CRM manager I meet.

While on this, let me highlight the "toll free" phrase in both messages. Vodafone has recently started charging for speaking to the call center agent. Bold move? I say stupid move. You can only do this, if your services are up to the mark and your service permits self service. The fact that they have to throw of customers from talking to the call center agents shows that customers do not find Vodafone services meeting their needs.

At this time, Idea comes out the "Get Idea" advert showing Abhishek telling a woman to get Idea when she has been held in waiting by the customer service number. Will it help them get the Vodafone customers...? This needs to be seen. But for someone who has recently been thru the Vodafone customer service and possibly suffered a charged interaction with the agent, this ad is bang on. A review of the advert series in this Sunday's daily by two advertising professionals gave poor rating to the Idea ad series. But as a consumer I disagree and think the advert series is bang on and probably much better that the "language" series Idea ran previously.

Yesterday I received a SMS from Nokia about a "strong BLACK theme" available for free download. When I go to the link, I am told that my phone does not support this theme. My registration with Nokia was for E72. They should have known that the theme is not supported by my phone and should have eliminated my number from the SMS list.

I have heard many marketers say "its only SMS and costs only 1 paise to send one out". But the cost of a wrong message is the possible option for "do not mail". To me the TCO of any database marketing should also include the cost of a customer opting for a "do not contact". Then this one SMS may seem like a cost of over a 100 rupees. Now let me hear you, Mr. Marketer..... speak louder...
 
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