State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Telecom companies have started using  Twitter and other social media platforms for effective customer service and brand promotion. The quality of how companies use these new media channels varies a lot. I wanted the readers to take a look at how customer service should be done - as shown by T-Mobile -  and the mistakes that Mobilink and Ufone are making.

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By Basit Ali

I’m an unhappy customer.

This all starts when I mistakenly decided to port my existing number to Warid Telecom. Yes you heard it right. It is MNP request.

Attempt 1 – March 2nd

I simply walked into a Warid Franchise (Balcom Ltd. Main boulevard, Defence lahore) near my house on a busy Monday evening (That ws 2^nd March). I was greeted with a few people occupying the counter and not letting me through, though I succeeded in almost shouting and asking “Can I get my number ported in to Warid from this franchise?” and a nod was the answer. Then I was asked to sit down and wait. I sat down and waited and as I had nothing else to do, I started listening to the requests being made. There were 3 customers on the counter, 2 getting some usual stuff done, and the 3 one was a “Peer” (yeah, peer in urdu). The guy who was talking and helping peer sahib appeared to be the manager or the senior franchise guy, while the other guys were clearly junior.After a painful wait of almost half an hour on the bench for me, and same for my wife and son in the car outside, I found a chance to come to the counter and talk to the rep. At the same instance, the manager took the peer sahib and his fellow into his cabin and I was the only one on this side of the counter.

Denial of service and a fight back

To my sheer surprise, when I asked the rep to give me the form for port-in request, he simply refused saying “we are out of forms, please come tomorrow morning”. I decided for a moment to simply forget about porting in, but that was just for a moment. The charm of the bundle sms and mms pushed me again to pursue the chance. I simply walked into the manager’s room and complained about the time I had to waste sitting and waiting just to listen that they don’t have the forms. Well, I was a little loud too. This worked, the manager walked out of his cabin, whispered stuff to the reps out there and instantly everything started working fine, the forms were available, the guy started filling my form, I gave him my NIC copy and showed him the original one, paid Rs. 100 (never got a receipt), showed him my current sim and walla! I got the new sim. I was told that it will be active within a week but it may take a few more days than a week too, so be patient.

I walked out of the franchise with this new sim and got busy with my life.

A never ending delay

I was very patient for 2 weeks and eventually on 15^th of March, I called Warid customer support to check the status. I had to wait for a long time ( I did’nt use a stop-watch, must be 15 mins or so) and finally my call got answered. I was told that as an SOP it can take around 15 days to port a number in. So I was told to be patient for a few more days.

Waited Further

I went into patience mode again. And then I was too busy for a couple of weeks to pursue that.

Attempt 2 – March 28th

On Saturday, March 28th I called the helpline again to check the status. This time I had a stop watch and it took only 17 minutes to get through to a rep and it really flared me up when he told me that they don’t have any port-in request against this number. What the heck? The helpline told me to simply go to the nearest business center, and not to the franchises to get MNP done. I asked about the franchise nearby and if it will be open and available or not. I was happily guided to Gulberg franchise and I was told that it is open for the service till late evening. I decided to simply go to the business center and complain about this franchise, though I complained to the telephone guy too.

Denial of service, yet again! and yeah a fight back too

I drove to Gulberg business center though I wasn’t that angry by then. I was security screened at the door and when I entered, I was greeted by a well dressed person. He was supposed to help and guide me to obtain a queue-ticket form that machine but when I told him that I’m here to get a number ported-in, he simply excused and told me “We don’t entertain MNP requests on Saturdays, you should come on Monday”. What the heck again???
I told him that the helpline sent me in but he continued arguing. Then another guy came in to get something done to his Blackberry. He was sent in by the helpline as well and he was refused service on Saturday too. When he saw himself getting cornered by two guys who were actually sent to the business center by helpline, he changed his mind and guided us both to respective reps.
I got the ticket, waited for a good 15 minutes and I got my turn.

Finally got the service I was looking for

I was greeted by a very helpful young guy. I told him my story and the first thing I wanted to do was to launch a complaint against the franchise. Apparently the guy knew some people at the franchise and he eventually convinced me not to launch a complaint. He was a nice fellow who excused and apologized for the trouble, filled a new form, saw my documents, took the payment and issued me yet another sim. As it was Saturday evening, he promised that it will be activated on Monday or Tuesday max.
Another promise broken!

Even wednesday’s gone, there’s no sign of number port in. Am I fooled again? Am I asking for a wrong service? Is that how a Telco should behave to the new customers (I don’t care if It is a franchise or not)? Can somebody suggest me where I should complain that actually creates a stir?
In short, if you are looking for some good customer service, my experience is VERY BAD with Warid.
I welcome your comments and feedback and please do share if you had a bad experience with Warid.

We may call it the exaggerated form of complaint or seriously disturbed customer. The picture was taken in Lahore and appreared in Daily Times newspaper last week. Its quiet a show from the person who hung this banner. This shows the customer service and ignorance of PTCL towards their customers. The picture speaks for itself and is an explanation within.

There has been a lot of discussion around the customer service quality and the fact that now some phone companies charge you a nominal amount when you call for service. I believe that it is not a good trend for consumers that they have to pay for a genuine service call. But there’s another factor: all the time you spend on the phone, especially when you have to deal with the IVR system.

These automated call flows are a necessity of modern businesses. For any large business which runs a call center, operational efficiency in call centers is critical and a down time of a few minutes is a huge issue. Keeping calls brief and using automated systems allows companies to keep the costs under control. Providing online information or other ways of avoiding calls (by using online chat etc) is important as well. For consumers however, it is a big pain go through the IVR maze.

Telenor takes an interesting approach: on their website they publish a number of IVR maps. See above for talkshawk map. I am sure this is helpful for some people but some of these maps can be so complex that it can be a discouragement for callers. What do you think?