• On December 22nd, I scheduled a pick up of a bicycle on next day for shipping it from Mumbai to Bangalore which was supposed to cost me INR 2,000/- and should taken 5-7 days. After picking the cycle next day (December 23rd) it was stuck in Mumbai for next 3 days until I called and asked the shipping date.
• On December 25th, Fastway informs me that it’s going to cost me INR 2630/- rather than discussed 2K originally in the name of taxes and other expenses which was never disclosed originally. Even then, I agreed to make a wire transfer of INR 2300/- to Mr. Rajveer’s ICICI account and the shipment was promised to reach me by next weekend. It didn’t reach me till January 4th.
• On January 5th, I called up again to ask the status and I get response that it’s stuck somewhere in Pune because of single shipment that other bunch of ludicrous arguments and again promised delivery by end of week “for sure”.
• On January 9th, I called up again what time it’s going to reach me and of course the guy says the cycle was “just” loaded on truck yesterday from Mumbai! Yes, after almost 3 weeks of keeping me in dark about the status I’m told that it was definitely going to reach me by Monday.
• On January 11th, I haven’t received it till 5 PM in evening and. On calling, the other guy hangs up saying that he will call me back with the status of shipment and isn’t replying to my calls since. Later on, I call again to get a delivery date of January 16th.
• On January 17th, I go to nearest police station to file a complaint for possible fraud against Fastway where police, after making me wait and talk to clerk, constable and sub-inspector, calls and warns them again to get a date of January 19th (because of some recurring bullshit now) and asks me to file it if it doesn’t go through.
• On January 19th, Today, Truck is still on the way to Bangalore, owner is in Goa, still asking me to wait for it. I give a last warning to him that if it doesn’t happen by 20th, they should be talking to Police on 21st.

At this point, I’m utterly frustrated, angry and in despair. I don’t know what can I possibly do to get my stuff, money and time spared from this company and the worst thing I can inflict to get even.

Irony is, this is not the one of the off cases that might happen to any of the companies or, customers anywhere. This is the kind of nuisance one has to go through every now and then when dealing with most of the services which involve online-offline (O2O) nature even in 21st century around here.

Here are few of the other chosen services that have left bad taste in past:

Banking
Couple years back, when transferring cash via ‘mobile based payment’ option with ICICI, for some reason the amount was transferred to some random account or, the recipient hadn’t enabled that option or something else. I lodged a complaint only to get a mail that amount was transferred to ‘intended recipient’. I kept trying for reversal of transaction at different levels of authorities there only, to keep getting the same bullship reply. Ultimately, I gave up and lost around INR 8,000/-.

Hyperlocal Services
Internet evolution has allowed to schedule pickup / delivery services as per convenient time, at a precise given location with precise set of items. But, the end workers (delivery personnel) are a ridiculous bunch of people. Most of the times, you end up with follow up calls asking for replacement options for out-of-stock items, delivery address or something else.
No. Train your people, keep your catalog updated and deliver on-time. Otherwise, I don’t want to deal with your shit!

Telecommunication
Airtel is supposed to have the best network infrastructure, speed and quality on a national scale. But, what you end up with is dropped calls, one-sided phone checks, shoddy data limits at unreliable speed and connectivity issues. The complaint acknowledgement takes 24 hours and resolution 5 working days. Only option you are left with is of some miracle happening, things start working smoothly on restart so that you can get on with things you actually would like to do.
What do you do when this is what “best” has to offer?

Transport
Last month, I booked a bus ticket from Bangalore to Goa after carefully selecting seat, bus and timings via redBus. Only to end up getting a call, an hour before travel time, from a random guy telling me that my bus is cancelled, seat is transferred to another bus from a different provider at a different time and sends me detail via SMS. What other fucking option I have then? Even if I don’t want, I need to now! You need to be at certain time in a certain place. After an hour of harassment of finding the new pick up place, bus and switched-off contact person you reach there only to find that none of the shit promised in the original ticket is working in the bus. Sweet!

Public Infrastructure

I ordered a LeapMotion kit to be shipped from US. After arriving in India, it was handed to India Post. It travelled places all over India including Mumbai, Delhi and Goa only to never reach me. I had to query with Mumbai Post Office, Mumbai Customs, Delhi Post Office, Delhi Customs and Delhi GPO because all their fucking website says is ‘Held at Customs’ and none of the employees ever have a clue of what’s happening in the world and complaint page looks like this.
I ended up asking for refund from source to get out of this hell. Luckily, their shipment was insured saving them loss too.

Such are the horrendous examples occurring all over the places more frequently than I’d like to admit.

This behavior exposes a rather deep rooted issue in the belief system of businesses and services 

provided in a country of 1.25 billion people like India.

From viewpoint of supply side, you are insignificant, replaceable and just another number much alike a miniscule drop in the vast ocean. You are just a piece of business who spits money in exchange of any shit service they provide. This is the problem with an economy like India with such a diverse social segments ranging from billionaires to middle class to extremely poor with increasing chunk of population towards latter. I can only imagine that perspective from behemoth companies in country with limited supply options and barely aware people with limited expectations will be to provide minimum possible acceptable value while asking for maximum acceptable rates.

Thing is, when you are trying to be at forefront of technology & innovation in a global information age, aware of the best services and customer experiences, minimum criteria is just not good enough. You expect companies to care about their service, serve in the best way possible they can and most of all treat you like a person and always questioning would I be happy at the receiving end of my service given the promises that were made? If the answer is no at any point, you should be willing to redo the entire process.

In stark contrast, though I might be biased, international brands (expanding after other developed countries) in India almost always rate higher on the scale. They understand that customer is the backbone of their business and a lasting company needs happy users. They, even go out of their way to make their service usage pleasant.

Take couple of hot homegrown internet business and their international counterparts:

• Ola vs Uber
  On choosing ride now option, I chose my exact map location. Ola driver calls me thrice in a different language to ask my landmark, location etc only to arrive after 20 mins compared to promised 4 mins shown while booking, with a car in shabby state and non-working AC. On the other hand, Uber driver reaches in almost the expected time at the location with a nice car with working equipments where you set the location and off you go.
  On sending a valid complaint to Ola, you get an automatic thanks and will look into email while, Uber gets you refund with no questions asked along with apology.
• Flipkart vs Amazon
  On choosing to refund, I have to pack stuff up, choose a courier service and ship it to given address in case of Flipkart while, Amazon pick up comes right at door at the appointed date to make your life easier. That’s what customer centric company is supposed to be.