I recently had to call TataSky customer care to get some information to install a connection for a neighbour. Customer care seems universally confused and unreliable in too many places all over India for me to be able to single out TataSky at this point in time, but things got interesting. Fellow said he would get someone to call me back which didn’t happen the first evening or the next day so I called them.
First fellow very confidently suggested a package that would be most suitable for my neighbour and told me it would take Rs. 1740 for the first visit which would have to be paid in cash to the person doing the installation. Said it included everything--labour, dish, remote, set-top box, one month’s free viewing etc. I spoke to the building manager--it’s a new building and they have (rather odd that foresight is seen in such things) one dish that everybody uses for all companies with just frequency or whatever changing according to the company.
Avoids all those ugly dishes sitting on the top. I called customer care back to tell them that they wouldn’t be installing any dish so why Rs. 1740. This time I was told that I didn’t need to pay cash, it would just be deducted from my account but that the price couldn’t be reduced. But the fact that I was paying for the dish now meant that I could get a free dish installed in the future if I moved. My neighbor didn’t look too happy, wanted more details. So I called back. This time, it went back to paying cash and the break up is as follows: Rs. 999 for set-top box, remote, dish, Rs. 491 for installation, Rs. 150 for the month’s introductory package which was actually worth Rs. 410: total Rs. 1640 not Rs. 1740 as per the customer rep’s quote. I asked about the month’s free viewing--turns out it’s discounted, not free. AND it’s not the one the first confident guy suggested, it’s their compulsory introductory package they hook you with so you think you can’t live without these channels after 30 days.
Took me a long time to get this out of them. In the end, if you disconnect, they won’t give you any refund for the dish and other gizmos--they say they will give your friends and your neighbor a rebate if you pass these onto them if you disconnect TataSky. I didn’t like the look in my neighbour’s eyes when she heard this over the loudspeaker. I guess this is why people learn to hide details.