Norms that Telecom regulators often overlook

Two months ago, I had the plesant experience of meeting the marketing representatives of a private telecom company (telco).  Just 30 minutes of discussions, two forms that they filled in after obtaining some inputs and my consent from me, and I witnessed a brand  new wireles telephone instrument installed at my house.  There was no need to go to the telephone exchange of MTNL (or BSNL), no need to go through a long waiting period, nor any need to grease the palm of the local linesman after the telephone instrument was installed and activated.

But the euphoria died soon.  Within three days of the telephone instrument being installed, it began giving me problems.  Expecting a prompt response from the telco, I rang up their customer service department was was greeted with a recorded message informing me “Your call is important to us.....”.  I gave up after seven minutes of waiting, and dialled again.  Once again I got the recorded voice telling me that my call was important, but could I “please wait?”.  After three days of trying, I finally got through.  I told the customer service operator that my instrument was defective.  She took down the details about my subscription, the problems that I was facing, my address etc, and finally requested me to bring my telephone instrument to the telco’s service centre which was a good 5 km away from my house.

I asked her whether the company could send either an engineer to repair or a replace the defective instrument.  She politely told me “No” and informed me that the procedure to follow when an instrument was defective was for the customer to bring over the instrument to the customer service centre.

I told her that this was not the practice with either MTNL or BSNL.  When a line is defective, the company engineer comes over.  She listened, but stuck to her line that the procedure to be followed could not be modified.  I did not blame her. It wasn’t her fault.  She was merely doing what she had been told to do as an employee.

But that episode made me write to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).  I asked it to let me know if the following expectations of a consumer from a telco service provider were ether excessive or unfair.

1. Can a service provider merely market its services and then refuse to visit the premises of a customer to address customer grievances?
2. Shouldn’t there be a customer service setup which allows a customer to escalate a problem to the next senior level?
3. Shouldn’t there be a ‘fair’ waiting period for a customer call to a complain center to be addressed instead of merely being reminded through a recording that his call is important, but that he should wait?
4. Shouldn’t the telco repair the instrument or replace it at the customer’s premises especially when the equipment has been supplied by the telco, and if it is within the warranty period?  That is what electric and gas supplies companies do, as do MTNL and BSNL. And if the inconvenience is great, shouldn’t the telco be ‘persuaded’ to compensate the customer for the problems he has faced?
5. Shouldn’t the telco be instructed not to bill the client/customer for the period when the defective services continue to be defective?

Happily, the TRAI took my letter quite seriously.  It wrote back to the company, and the company promptly responded by agreeing to replace the equipment at my premises.  But as the services offered did not match the claims made when I accepted the service, I opted to terminate the arrangement.  Of course, I paid the telco for the calls I had made on the instrument, even though they pertained to the period when the service was inadequate and the instrument faulty.

But the entire episode leaves me upset. Clearly, the TRAI and the government’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) have yet to introduce rules and guidelines in respect of the above queries that I raised.  While, the company was gracious enough to respond to the TRAI’s ‘suggestions’ and my grievances were largely addressed, there has been no list of such do’s and don’t’s being formalized and sent out to all telcos..

I could fight my way through, and was even ready to approach the consumer courts should the need arise. But is that the solution?  Shouldn’t it be the responsibility of the government to frame laws that do not require customers to appeal to the courts or to the regulatory authorities and that such simple processes are made quite clear to everybody?

Ideally the best service is one where the customer does not complain.  But that could take some more time.  Mercifully, the advance of technology, and the new proposals of the government should actually accelerate this process.  Watch this space!