I always thought that the customer care of any service is set up for a purpose. But I cannot say the same about Hathway Broadband.
First out, they ’repair’ & ’upgrade’ modem/connection without informing that there’d be no connection for a day, never mind the fact that the promised one day stretches to 7 days! And we have to pay for all those days that we didn’t use the net.
But that’s not what I’m upset about. I got a whopping bill amount this time, for which I needed clarification. Let me mention that Hathway has the dumbest and dullest executives, especially the women employees. So, this one charlie explains the amount for 15 mins but I don’t understand a thing.
So, I decide to call back and speak to someone who’d make sense, during which time they decide to deactivate my connection.First they tell me it’s a renewal issue. So I call the renewal dept and they tell me it’s because of nonpayment.Ok, now let me tell you chronologically...
2nd Sept: **I
call them up and mercifully this time I finally get to speak to someone who makes
sense. Amount clarified, the exec says I need to pay a min of 1, 500 INR and my
connection would be activated in an hour. But they won’t send an exec to Bandra
to collect the payment since it’s out of the way (!!) and there is no bill
collection centre in Bandra. Anyway, the guy says he’ll find out if a
collection guy can come on that day and take the payment and call me back. He
never calls. But I drop a check of half the amount since I was low on cash.
Needless to say, the collection man doesn’t show up.
3rd Sept: Ganesh
Chaturthi, so I don’t bother to call.
4th Sept**:
I’m given the number of some Vishal to call. The guy doesn’t answer. I call
back and tell this girl exec and tell her my problem and that Vishal isn’t answering, to which she replies,
‘Who’s Vishal?’ Yeah, I should know! And
then without a word she keeps me on hold for over 7 mins. And I’m asked to call
Sagar. Again, Sagar doesn’t answer the phone the entire day.
5th Sept: **I
call help desk again and tell them Sagar wouldn’t answer the phone. They
confirm my cell no. and promise me that Sagar would call back. Promises and
lies!
6th Sept: **I
call and remind them that the check takes 4 days to clear after which my connection should
be activated. This is what I was told. Today is the 5th day, but no connection yet. So the
guy takes my check details and says that he has passed on the information to the concerned person, but then he says it would take 6 to 8 hrs for the net to be activated. And it’s Saturday. No
collection guy will come home. I have to go and make the payment. So, well, I
decide to do just that.
The distributors Sai Star Cable are busy with
Ganeshotsav and have erected a huge, beautiful pandal. They have a really posh office.
Anyway, I give my account no and
tell them I have to make cash payment. Guess what, I can make the payment but
billing guys are not working today so it can be done only on Monday! And
apparently this time is a different executive responsible – Kamlesh. Since I
was already there I decided to make the payment or then if they had it their
way they wouldn’t activate the net for another week. I’m made to wait for 15
mins after already waiting for 10. And unlike the billing guys who are not working today, I have work to go to. The guy didn’t resurface, so I left.
Well, I guess instead of spending the money only on the office building and lavish Ganeshotsav, if they spend money and get educated employees rather than the uneducated ones right now, it would be great favour to customers!