Customer Service in India really sucks

Little doubt that Customer Service in India really sucks. Else attribute it to some freakish coincidence that ICICI Bank, Citibank, BSNL and Tata AIG Insurance are all equally bad in serving their customers.

Believe it or not we wasted over 5 hours of our weekend talking to some customer service reps for various year end/mundane tasks like paying insurance premiums, telephone bills and all of them outdo each other in acting stupid!

Consider it twice if you are taking your Auto Insurance from Tata AIG because you can be sure they wouldn't dispatch your policy hardcopy even 2 weeks after you've paid the money.

ICICI Bank requires their customers to visit the bank in person to change the address. Which is still fine. But for every task you got to visit them atleast 2 times for they never seem to get anything straight the first time, from issuing pins to changing addresses. It is quite funny to visit the branch..stand in long queues glaring at the 10 inch monitor over your head for your token number to go ting tong..so much for automation!

Citibank is the master of it all. On the one hand it charges their customers when they make a personal visit to the branch and on the other it resorts to ancient ways for getting the address changed. It requires them to post a hand written letter ensuring that your requests never get handled. It has taken me over 4 months to get a goddamn address changed.

BSNL, Pune is a black mark for BSNL. On the one hand you see pictures of Dayanidhi Maran and Bill Gates flashing all over and his attempt to make the connection process smoother and faster, and on the other you see such morons that makes you think, where is this country heading to. Telephone bills never reach home after multiple reminders but they are prompt enough to call up to disconnect the line.

Either I must be living in a very backward city of this country or Pune is totally not worth a place to live in. Atleast now I can partially empathise with Americans' experience of Indian Call Centers and their processes.