[vnabhi]

+1 to rohan_iltr's views on how to deal with customer service. I, for one, fall into the 'blood boiling and shouting' category, but will keep this counsel in mind in future.

I was thinking of shifting to Tata Sky from Hathway, but am now having second thoughts. I am disgusted with Hathway for not showing Discovery Turbo for the past month, while some pals of mine using Hathway are getting it fine. It appears to be an issue with set top boxes with some serial numbers. To make matters worse, I'm not getting NG and History Channel for the past few days.

[zaks]

Even I have Tata Sky but from the beginning I always opted for monthly recharge. I charge online every month for Rs.350 and am happy to avoid any hassled like this and I always retain the choice to change/swap packages when I feel like.

[jigbarai]

I've faced this unusual package changes/subscriptions too. In just about 1 month after my 'free' period of tatasky was over.
Thankfully the amount was barely 70-90 bucks that they would have fooled around with. Was too bugged that day to argue for the same.

Eventually I moved on to their all inclusive annual plan and no money left for them in the account to play with.
Hopefully I now wont have to contact them for the next one year (unless it starts raining again

[idea]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Interesting. I have been a TS customer from 3 years now and always pay the fees one-shot. Some Rs.3500/annum odd in a go and never faced any problems.

Infact, i dealt with them (customer service) only 3 times in last 3 years and always came out with a pleasant feeling and no technical or financial glitches.

There is not other DTH in our country which can match Tata Sky. Period

I have been using it for last two years. There are no problems as such. Except for on incidence where in i was traveling overseas for a month and validity of my annual pack ended.

I was charged some "Entry Penalty" during recharge as i didnt recharge it before expiry. I was never updated about this penalty by them. Also there were no reminder sms/mail regarding expiry date.

Best option could be keeping Balance amount to bare minimum.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by jigbarai

Hopefully I now wont have to contact them for the next one year (unless it starts raining again

Rain is the only issue with TS. It just conks out and refuses to come back until the rain gods have subsided

Originally Posted by idea

I have been using it for last two years. There are no problems as such. Except for on incidence where in i was traveling overseas for a month and validity of my annual pack ended.

I like their style. Unlike others who torture you with reminder calls even before your due date is over ( I get reminder phone calls from Tata Photon 3 days before due date asking me to pay the bill) TS just sends you " yellow envelopes" on your TV screen which are reminders or messages. Sometimes, this too is very irritating

[bblost]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Rain is the only issue with TS. It just conks out and refuses to come back until the rain gods have subsided

Same thing with my Big TV.

I like their style. Unlike others who torture you with reminder calls even before your due date is over ( I get reminder phone calls from Tata Photon 3 days before due date asking me to pay the bill) TS just sends you " yellow envelopes" on your TV screen which are reminders or messages. Sometimes, this too is very irritating

Same thing with my Big TV. Only there is no envelope, just a message that pops up with balance too low, please recharge soon.
Pressing the blue button makes the message go away to the place where all electrons go to die.

[sanjayc]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Still 74 channels on a TV that is rarely switched on, say one or two times in a month.

I guess Tata sky has an option to suspend membership for a much reduced fee on a temporary basis...for example if one is going on vacation, they can inform tatasky upon which signals will be deactivated for the requested period. But to save a few bucks, the hassle is worth it is another question altogether.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

Whenever we notice some wrong billing in the statement, our blood starts boiling and our first reaction is to vent our anger on someone by calling the customer care number and shouting at the customer care executive. After shouting at the customer care executive, you feel triumphant. But the fact of the matter is that you don't have any record or reference number of the conversation, and hence there is no accountability on the customer care executive to look into your complaint and solve the issue.

So, instead of shouting at customer care executive or threatening them to cancel the service, the easier approach is to write a simple email to the customer care explaining the problem faced by you. When complaint is given in a written format, there is accountability on the executive reading the email to solve the issue and reply to the email. This approach is fool proof, the only downside is that you don't get the sadistic pleasure of shouting at someone over the phone.

I never said I was screaming at the call center executive. I know call center operations pretty well as I have been designing telephony software for call centers for over a decade. I have even designed the agent rating software that scores the agent performance. So I know how the system works. Therefore, I went about in a clinical fashion, in a very icy cool voice. My entire call lasted only 7 minutes, I just checked.

Originally Posted by sanjayc

I guess Tata sky has an option to suspend membership for a much reduced fee on a temporary basis...for example if one is going on vacation, they can inform tatasky upon which signals will be deactivated for the requested period. But to save a few bucks, the hassle is worth it is another question altogether.

I can't do this every alternate week, so it is a moot point.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I never said I was screaming at the call center executive. I know call center operations pretty well as I have been designing telephony software for call centers for over a decade. I have even designed the agent rating software that scores the agent performance. So I know how the system works. Therefore, I went about in a clinical fashion, in a very icy cool voice. My entire call lasted only 7 minutes, I just checked.

I didn't mean to say that you are one of the screaming kind.

I was just saying, in general, that I have observed many people trying to relieve their frustration by shouting at somebody. Such people find customer care centres as a nice outlet to vent their anger (generally against something or someone else), and in the process hope to get the dispute resolved by raising their voice or threatening to cancel the service if the issue is not resolved in their favour.

In the opening post, you mentioned that you were furious when you noticed the discrepancy in the billing and that you threatened the customer care to cancel the service if the issue was not resolved in your favour. Your tone might have been polite, but the fact is that you bullied the customer care executive, albeit in a polite and sophisticated manner.

I am not here to judge you. It this approach works for you, then its good for you. I always prefer to communicate through emails, it works for me.

Rohan

[GTO]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

One thing I don't understand is why do some subscribers (like Samurai and GTO mentioned above) maintain balance like 2K or 3K in their account, even when they don't intend to subscribe to the annual pack and have monthly packs of 200-300 odd bucks. Not that there's anything wrong in having excess account balance, I am just curious to know.

Who's got the time to log in every month and recharge, man?! And I'm not comfortable with allowing auto-debit facilities on my bank account / credit card either (Tata sky or any other service provider).

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by GTO

Who's got the time to log in every month and recharge, man?! And I'm not comfortable with allowing auto-debit facilities on my bank account / credit card either (Tata sky or any other service provider).

+1.

First week of every month always drives me nuts trying to remember what all i have to pay and ensure balances in all my bank accounts etc. So one less payment to remember surely helps

I have an auto debit only for my home and car loan. Others payments are always with my will and knowledge

[asdon]

Recently I changed my Tatasky plans from Super Saver to True Choice package, which gives me a saving of Rs 75/Month, I selected Economy+Hindi Movie+English Movie+ Knowledge+ Hindi Entertainment+ English Entertainment+ Music+ English News+ Sports 2, they gave 2 regional package free I took Bengali/Oria + Hindi. Once activated I can not drop a package for 3 months - warned by the Executive on phone. And the fix was they were offering me topper channel free for a month here is the conversation -
"Sir there is a special offer in your account"
Me - "Whats that?"
"Sir you are getting topper channel free for one month, should I add it?"
Me - "I don't see that channel nor I need to, so leave it"
"Sir its free, if you are not satisfied, don't view it"
Me - "So next month it will not be there in my account?"
"No sir it will be there and will be charged"
Me - "So if I want to drop it?"
"Sir once subscribed, you can not drop it for 3 months"
Me -"Then I don't need it"
"Sir, it was free so I was offering you, as you don't want I will not add it, its your wish only"

They will offer you for free then from 2nd month onwards without your consent Rs 35/- will be deducted from your account balance, so friends be carefull when dealing with such free offers.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by GTO

Who's got the time to log in every month and recharge, man?! And I'm not comfortable with allowing auto-debit facilities on my bank account / credit card either (Tata sky or any other service provider).

Even I am not comfortable with auto-debit facilities, except for home loan and car loan. I also prefer to make payments as per my wish.

Originally Posted by mobike008

First week of every month always drives me nuts trying to remember what all i have to pay and ensure balances in all my bank accounts etc. So one less payment to remember surely helps

I have an auto debit only for my home and car loan. Others payments are always with my will and knowledge

Its not that difficult or time consuming, if done in a systematic and planned manner.

I have made a list of all payments I need to make on a monthly basis - 3 credit cards, 2 mobile phones, broadband and DTH. In this list, I have also mentioned the billing date and last date for each of them. On the first weekend of the month, I see what bills are pending and pay them off through online payments. On the next weekend, the other leftover bills are paid off.

I have also made a list of all payments I need to make on an yearly basis - car insurance, bike insurance, life insurance, health insurance etc, again along with the respective due dates.

I just have to refer to these checklists, no need to break my head every month, trying to remember what all things are pending.

I started working in an era where the concept of ATM and internet banking was relatively unknown. Credit card payments were made by dropping a cheque in the bank's drop box, mobile payments were made by visiting the customer care centre, train tickets were booked by visiting the railway station and standing in queue.

Compared to that stone age, today we enjoy so much technology at our disposal - bills through email, reminders through SMS, online bill payments, online flight/rail ticket booking etc.

Since I have seen the older times, today it really amuses me when people say that they can't find 2-3 minutes of their time to pay a bill online, even though they have 24 hour internet connectivity at home as well as workplace. Technology has made people lazy.

I may sound like an uncle, but I am actually 2 years younger than GTO.

Rohan

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

I was just saying, in general, that I have observed many people trying to relieve their frustration by shouting at somebody. Such people find customer care centres as a nice outlet to vent their anger (generally against something or someone else), and in the process hope to get the dispute resolved by raising their voice or threatening to cancel the service if the issue is not resolved in their favour.

After i had Airtel DTH activated at my new apartment, i had issues where the thing was signalless ever so often, without any reason.

I was patient, despite having paid up the entire first year subsription amount in full. I informed them once, someone came and fixed it. That evening, it was gone again!

The same process repeated itself over 5 days, and it was so bad that when we wanted to watch TV, it was never there! I got frustrated, and irritated.

Called up customer care, and they went through the same old parrot approach, check this check that and so on which i patiently did, but knowing it wasnt the issue.
I then gave them a stern warning that if this is not resolved one last time, and for final, i demand my money back. Calling them up on a daily basis was not my primary occupation.

Needless to say, it got resolved with no repetition of the issue thereafter.

So, it does pay to be assertive at times. I know how it works, since i am also involved in a customer facing job.

Originally Posted by mobike008

Rain is the only issue with TS. It just conks out and refuses to come back until the rain gods have subsided

Why blame TS alone? Add Airtel DTH to the list as well. On such occassions, i think the good old cable was better.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

Since I have seen the older times, today it really amuses me when people say that they can't find 2-3 minutes of their time to pay a bill online, even though they have 24 hour internet connectivity at home as well as workplace. Technology has made people lazy.

Do you have kids? If not, have couple of them first, send them to different activities apart from school, then refresh your views about what people say about not having time. But wait, you may not have time for that then!