On Wateen WiMAX CPE And Customer Service
Here’s an interesting piece from the national media about WiMAX technical issue and problems with the customer service. The title is “Customer Disservice” and it appeared in The News and in Spider magazine. According to the latest update, this particular issue got resolved. There was a huge disconnect between the billing, provisioning and customer service departments. That leaves me wondering: how many other WiMAX users are in similar situation?
The quality of service on WiMAX is said to be mediocre on average: good some days and average for most of the time. This is consistent with feedback from this blog and popular online forums such as Wired Pakistan. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Broadband was to be my salvation, and it was a joyful day when I got my connection on 17th July, provided by a company who I will not name in case they get litigious, but their name begins with a W and ends with n work it out for yourselves. For eighteen days I lived in a kind of net-heaven. YouTube, streaming radio and TV stations from around the world, email at the speed of light, no longer restricted to graphics-lite sites wonderland! Then it rained. What the franchise people who sold me the connection (and got the commission for doing so) had failed to mention was that the indoors receiver worked poorly in temperatures above 40C (it hits the high forties in Bahawalpur), the signal strength was badly affected by humidity and, the real clincher, that in reality I needed an externally-mounted receiver to get the full benefit of their incredible service. Fine, when can you come and install one? Errr, we don’t have any at the moment, Sir. Things have gone sharply downhill from there.
Having been assured that the external units would be arriving before Ramazan I waited patiently. There were several visits to the franchise, numerous visits by an engineer who at least had the sense to talk to me honestly and nothing by the way of a broadband service. The engineer called again two weeks ago, fiddled around a bit and lo and behold he managed to get a signal into the receiver and restored my connection. Delighted, I asked him if I could top up my account. Sure, no problem he said, which is when The Big Problem arrived. W wanted to bill me (3025rps) for the time I was unable to receive their service at which point there was a large explosion in downtown Bahawalpur and a very worried customer services lady on the end of a phone in Lahore. She told me that the long-promised external receivers were nowhere on the horizon, that she could understand why I was a touch irritated and promised to forward my complaint to her superiors.
As of my last correspondence with Chris Cork, the author of this article, the issue was resolved by Wateen. Getting the concerns published in the national media must have forced Wateen to act quickly to resolve the matter. Perhaps the voice of ordinary consumer in Pakistan will become more powerful with time but for now it is an uphill battle.
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Hi,
yes about 10-15 days before there was a huge problem in wateen internet as well as its billing. I was shocked when my bill went about -1500 in just an hour when i was away from my laptop. Even i recharged my account with Rs. 500/- card that evening and it was working but stdunly it went -1500 wow.
Well i called wateen CSR and it was told that they are updating, ok fine that happens in Pakistan most of time when some organisation is updating its system a huge amount of data is lost or get dirty. I don’t know why I am also a software engineer and when we update our client’s system we take a lot lot care of his data already there. Sometimes I feel like this is a very good and famous excuze for them even for Govt. sctor as You must have heard the issue about Haji’s Passport delay these days, some official said on media it was due to some unknow computer fault, wow they think every one in here is a damn ( JAHIL ) like them.
Well back to wateen, after 24 hours i called them again and now it was told that some how early this month my account was charged by Rs 2000/- automatically and now that amount is deducted. Shocked! Why I never know i was using internet of sunch amount that is equal to my 45-45 days usage in just 10 days and i was also continusly updating my account with scratch cards.
On my third call there was some sensible man and he checked the records and find that it was some error by billing system and then he send a query to some where unknow which took 2 more days to resolve the issue. I was like Great ! and me poor soul was using GPRS in those days for my professional needs :( how hectic?
I just want to know we the customers are the cause of billions and million of business to these companies every day, why the hell they do these things to us ?
Regards
Mudassar Ijaz
Competition in the market, as well as the voice of the customers, should be able to put businesses in line and brush up their act. It is okay to have some human errors involved in dealing with customer services issues but the margin should never be so large that the customers - and general public - start noticing the trend!
This article voiced one man’s opinion that was a product of his experience - and only after this the company hastened to act. I hope the emergence of Mobilink Infinity and LinkdotNET’s WiMax services - along with EVDO and triple play et cetera will make the companies realize that they cannot get away with compromised customer service anymore.
I found Wateen customer service is better than PTCL b/c I was PTCL poor user and they never ever replied.
PSHRM Awards 2008:
At a time when everyone was focusing on the downfall of the global economy, a magnificent evening was being organized by the Pakistan Society of HRM at Sheraton Hotel and Engage Human Resource on 25th of November to celebrate the PSHRM Awards 2008.
Naveed Qamar, Federal Minister for Privatization, Investment, Ports and Fishing was the Chief Guest to a stunning show which brought together an elite gathering of top business and industry professionals.
The aim of the awards was to acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of the HR Executives who have invested their efforts to turn their work force into efficient and high performing Human Capital. In fact; these awards were a brilliant networking opportunity for the HR leaders to look at the possibilities to advance HR practices and build capacity in their respective organizations, which was something Navroz Surani, the President of PSHRM emphasized in his address.
The jury included Dr. Ishrat Hussain , Former Governor State Bank, Paul Keijzer, CEO, Engage HR and Navroz Surani, President, PSHRM who selected winners based on the opinions collected by 11,00 graduates from 27 universities across 7 cities.
Unilever Pakistan was awarded with “PSHRM Most Preferred Graduate Employer Award 2008″ for the second consecutive year. The “PSHRM HR Excellence Award 2008″ was given to Telenor Pakistan. Where the other most preferred employers which were awarded in there respective industry sectors are:
* Royal Bank of Scotland (Banking)
* Unilever Pakistan (Consumer Goods)
* Mobilink (Telecom)
* P&G (Best People)
* Microsoft (Information Technology)
* Schlumberger (Oil and Gas)
* Siemens (Engineering)
* Wateen (Challenging and Interesting Work)
* British Petroleum (Development and Career Opportunities)
The CEO of the companies has collected their awards from Mr. Naveed Qamar. Comedy Skits and HR games performed by few students were the entertainment for the evening. All the major Electronic and Print media has covered this event.
Hello guys Eid Mubarak!!
Did you see Wateens ad in News papers?? If you people do not know about that so I share with you……. kay Wateen is offering new Eid package for their beloved customers.. This offers free national and international calls like U.K, Canada etc…and get 50% extra free minutes……….
For further more please visit http://www.wateen.com/registration.aspx
Wateen’s customer support is worst, with every call and email they generate a new ticket and later closed it without solving problem, when I contacted them about it, they issued another ticket. My account is closed from last 2 weeks, I have called support, sent emails and visited karachi office many many times but they could not solve a simple billing mistake.
Wateen record hit broadband market causing Etisalat(PTCL) to rollback its broadband infrastructure from pakistan.
Dear All,
Just wanted to inform you that if you have any pending issues or concerns with services, please email customerservice@wateen.com and we will ensure resolution in timely fashion.
Thanks.
Dear All
If you have any pending concern regarding Wateen service kindly send an email to customerservice@wateen.com along with your Wateen internet login .We will get back to you.
Regards
Saadia