Wednesday, August 10, 2005

battery low

The extent to which Orange is used was revealed when the Sociology Sir said that the networks were purposefully blocked on the 26th and the 27th so that there would be no spread of rumors. First of all, the land lines were not affected, and secondly, the Airtel and Reliance networks were functioning, I don’t know about BPL though.
Opting for orange has probably turned out to be the fourth biggest mistake of my life (will make a list later) because their service sucks big time. When I called up their toll free number for assistance, 22222, I got this girl with a really thick and weird accent, of which I could not understand anything, including her name. This is the conversation that followed, after Orange was kind enough to take me in circles in the automated speech thing, and also advertised prepaid and orangeworld before connecting me to some PERSON who answered my phone.
Girl: hello, how may I help you, Sir?
Me: Yeah, I have activated GPRS four days ago, but I do not know which access point to use, there are around six for GPRS, there’s hutch underscore GPRS, then orange GPRS, orange GPRS one, another hutch GPRS which is all in caps. (I excluded the other two because there was an Airtel GPRS and another that said access GPRS)
Girl: I am sorry Sir, I did not understand what you just said
Me: I just want to know which GPRS access point I should use to log onto the net
Gril: May I have your name Sir?
Me: That’s Aditya (I contemplated if I wanted to reveal my surname, Madanapalle to her, and thought that it would make matters too complicated so I instead gave her my Middlename) Aditya Jayaram.
Girl: Yes, Mr. Jayaram Sir, Orange offers GPRS facility to postpaid and prepaid users which allows you to surf the net, check e-mails, brows for ringtones, wallpapers, singtones (she actually said that, though it is untrue), games and cricket, astrology…
Me: Yeah, yeah, I want to check my mail, how do I do that?
Girl: I am sorry Sir, can you please repeat that again?
Me: I SAID I wanted to CHECK my MAIL. How do I do that?
Girl: Sir, are you calling from the number you want to use GPRS on?
Me: Yes
Girl: ok, Sir, I will send you an SMS with the settings
Me: I already got the SMS, and saved the settings, I need to know which access point to use to log on to my mail.
Girl: What problem are you having Sir?
Me: I am unable to connect to the GPRS facility.
Girl: What error message are you getting sir?
Me: Unable to connect to GPRS server
Girl: To check your mail, you have to log on to the net via your computer, and then the mail will be shown on your mobile (THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID)
Me: Thank you (Obviously, I gave up at this point)
Girl: Thank you sir, is there anything else I can help you with
Me: No thanks
And I hung up.
Half an hour later, I get an SMS

“Hello! You just spoke to Sabina Pathan from Orange. We’d like to know if you were satisfied with the experience. Reply toll free with yes or no.”

Another hour later, I receive a call, from this number. Use it to give her hell, I don’t care. The number is: 9819814495. I am going to spread the word to use this number for blank calls.

Anyway, some girl calls me up (it is a different girl, I can understand her):
Girl: Sir, I am glad that we could be of your assistance this afternoon, may I ask how much do you refill your orange prepaid card with every month Sir?
Me: (I decided to entertain her, because I was bored) see, it depends on my balance, if it is below the six hundred threshold, I refill it with whatever it takes to get it to six. If my balance is around four, I take a refill of four too. Usually it is in the range of one to six.
[the line gets disconnected, probably because she didn’t know how to handle this information, and talked to her manager or whatever to ask him or her how to handle the situation]
I get a call back in slightly more time than it takes to redial, but enough time to ask someone the question.
Girl: Sorry sir, I had forgotten to refill my battery (yeah right!), Sir, what is the last amount you refilled for?
Me: Four
Girl: Four hundred
Me: Yes
Basically, girl launches into postpaid marketing speech, I argue right back saying how prepaid is more economical, and how it is futile to try to leech out money from customers like me. She cut the phone abruptly when I got to the point where I said something like you had promised the public that you will approach them with schemes that are only beneficial to them, and I would like to know on what basis that was decided.
Probably her battery was low again.

1 comment:

Ar said...

hehe. the battery in her head was alos low, i guess!