I have often purchased mineral water bottles from General Stores pre-COVID days. You must also have. However, during and after COVID, online shopping has taken over the market like fish takes to water. Undoubtedly, it is more convenient for working women like me who still prefer to avoid places where human congestion will be unavoidable. It is also time saving and makes life easy in many ways. However, consumers’ convenience and ease invariably depend on how the shopping site performs and takes care of customers. It is on this point that many a times services get compromised.
My mother was advised to have bottled water after a bout of stomach ailment. To ease efforts I purchased twenty litre of Bisleri(two ten litre cans) from their official website. While doing so I also learnt that they have a mobile app. As it was a permanent affair, I thought it would be convenient to refill the empty can through the app. I downloaded it.
I was under the impression that the app would contain my purchase history. But it did not. For the next refill it charged me afresh. Nevertheless I continued as it was essential for me. The app functioned perfectly. Soon after the purchase there would be a message on my mobile that the item was out for delivery but it never reached me. At times, there would be phone calls from the Distributor’s Office whether I wanted the delivery. On my affirmation, an assurance for ready service followed. But it never happened.
I approached the Customer Care which promptly shrugged off the responsibility to the sole Distributor of the area. The delivery boy had given a contact number which was unresponsive.(On the aside, let me narrate another incident when the Delivery Boy asked to use the toilet on one occasion. It was refused as we were not sure what his intentions were or whether it was proper for him to ask for such a service from a customer.) I again reverted to the Customer Care. They appeared to be clueless.
Then one fine day I called up the Distributor himself. Fortunately, he responded and delivered the refill. In the meantime, to replenish I had to purchase several bottles through other apps as I could not do without the water.
In the meanwhile, I decided to get a refund from the official website from which I had made the initial purchase. The refund was not made in full. I also gathered that I was supposed to return three cans but I only had two. Not understanding, I pursued the matter. This time there was a revert from the Customer Care. A female voice explained to me very impatiently that I was supposed to get a can extra during the initial purchase which I did not and that she would arrange for the same.
Days passed but the extra can did not get delivered. Whenever I called up Customer Care, they either appeared clueless or diverted me to the Distributor. The Distributor told me point blank that he did not have any instruction from the Company to deliver a third can.
Months passed when one fine morning I decided to take up the matter in hand again. I wrote to Bisleri Customer Care giving all the details once again. Needless, to say I had by now written several mails in addition to making calls to the Customer Care. But this time there was a difference. I threatened to escalate the matter to the higher ups in the Company and write a scathing online review about how they dealt with their customers.
I do not know which threat worked this time but someone who introduced himself as the Area Manager called me up and assured that the problem would be resolved in no time. He kept his words. In a day or two, he called me up again from the Distributor’s Office, checked the records and apprised that there was one delivery in between for which I was not charged. He was correct. So that was supposed to be the extra delivery. But still the issue of three cans remained. It was then explained that the additional delivery was equivalent to the third can that the Customer Care girl had so off handedly given me to understand. I only had to return two cans and not three.
Matter resolved I got the full refund on returning two cans. However, it took months to understand the system, pursue the matter and finally get the refund. If I had not been perseverant, the Distributor would have got away not paying me the full amount and I would have been stuck with two empty cans of Bisleri for which I did not have any use.
Though I had intended not to write a negative review, on second thought, I deemed it appropriate to at least narrate the full story for the benefit of other consumers who could be a little more vigilant while dealing with the Service Providers. In conclusion, I would not state pessimistically that nothing worked properly in this country. Rather systems work in their own pace and consumers would do better to pursue the issues constantly till satisfactory closure of the matter. However, service providing in our country still requires to be more customer oriented, energetic and prompt. Perhaps it is so in case of other Companies but for Bisleri they have to take a lesson from this narrative.