Keya Sarkar: Fixed in a small town

Having lived in cities for the better part of my life, I tend to take a lot of services for granted. But moving from a metropolitan city like Mumbai to West Bengal (sorry! Paschim Banga) is not easy, especially to a small town in Banga.

If I found it tough to keep gadgets working in Mumbai, it is a nightmare here. Recently, our car’s AC gave up and the local Santiniketan mechanic told us that we would have to change it. So, we called the nearest Maruti dealer — a 100 km away in Burdwan. They said they would have to procure a compressor and let us know when we could come. We went on the appointed day, got the compressor changed and paid the money. But on the way back we realised our petrol Swift now sounded like one that ran on diesel! So, we went back to the dealer who agreed to replace it — we just had to foot the petrol bill for the 200-km ride!

For the businesses that we run in Santiniketan, we have two walky phone connections from Reliance. At the end of each billing cycle, the call centre reminds us that our bill is due. But we have to wait for the Reliance agent’s representative to visit us! With no permanent office or staff, mofussil towns are good for sales and collection. God help you if you have a service issue.

But recently, just as I was reading about how market research had shown that the Tata name was the most respected corporate brand, our Tata Indicom walky began to give us trouble. I called the service engineer who came and fiddled with the phone. He said he had fixed it and asked for to be paid. When I asked for the bill, he said this call was being attended by him personally and not on the company’s behalf and, therefore, he could not produce a bill.

I asked him to leave and went looking for a new handset instead, to avoid calling in dubious mechanics. The particular set I wanted wasn’t available locally. Nor were any other that could take the data input necessary to run a credit card swipe machine.

I lodged an official request with the call centre and was extremely comforted by the call-centre phone message that said how happy Tata Indicom was at being the first to introduce “dependable service” in India and how they have taken a “service pledge”.

Meanwhile, I also tried to speak to somebody at the regional office in Durgapur and in Kolkata. Many senior personnel in marketing and technical assistance assured me that they would look into the matter and gave me dates by which my problem would be addressed. But as I fretted over the loss of sales in case my other phone packed up, I got no response from the company. Except for an SMS on my cellphone that referred to my request number and informed me that my problem was resolved!

I tried calling all the senior personnel who had given me their numbers. But the Tatas, they recruit smart guys. They knew my number and naturally did not respond. But I didn’t give up. About 50 tries later, I got somebody on the other side. I was told a new phone had been dispatched from Kolkata and later the same service engineer who I had asked to leave came to fix it.

Anyway, the engineer, this time with his Tata Indicom hat on, fixed the new phone and even left a receipt that said all the parts that I had bought came with a three-month warranty. The LCD display malfunctioned the very next day. Even as I went back and lodged a complaint with the call centre (by now I know the number by heart), I also got myself a BSNL form. The comfort of good old public sector, without a service pledge, just service.