Hutch - Improves. Review on Hutchison Max Telecom

LATEST UPDATE: APRIL 2006....I do not know whether hutch people have read the below review written in 2004, but I would say lots of things have changed in Hutch, BANGALORE and improved for the better. I appreciate the new customer service facility wherein we can send feedback on both customer service agent as well as service of hutch!! So I have improved the ratings for Hutch! BELOW OLD REVIEW: AUGUST 9, 2004

1. NETWORK:

1.1. Wherever you go.... hutch follows...or the dog follows..... I didn’t understand the ad ... because.... Wherever you go ... stray dogs do follow you in bangalore... but NOT the hutch network connection !

1.2. Have network? nothing to worry, still you ARE GOING TO HAVE network PROBLEM... BTM LAYOUT TOP FLOOR OF A FIVE STOREYED BUILDING... getting signal from four to five HUTCH towers.... signal strength on mobile is always full...

1.2.1. Still calls get cut... (call drops....)

1.2.2. While on call you get sounds... (ding...dong.. bing... bong) disruption... you tell the other person the whole story of a movie to realise that the only thing the person at the other end heard was the special effects.... (ding...dong.. bing... bong).

Reason: network overload... more people are in network than network can handle and hutch people cannot upgrade because all the money is spent on ads with dogs or mms or donating big billboards of hutch even to the fish shop keeper whom you thought until recently was selling fish.....nothing to worry after there is something fishy about hutch!

1.3. FREE BILLING FROM HUTCH !! WOW !You make a call ... it rings...then the ring stops...the other person has picked the phone.. you say hello... no sound . hello . hello. helo..well then either you cut the phone or other person keeps the phone... then in such a case you are eligible for a FREE billing..oh! u didnt understand... actually the call has been made.... and you will find you have been charged for the call... FREE! you did not even had to talk to other guy... Well dont worry thinking you are the only person who is getting affected...hutch has customer friendly policy... when you are suffering it will see to it that the friend who has called you should also suffer..in an area where they say they have full network.. when incoming calls come whether it be within bangalore or karnataka or be an STD call or ISD call.... the no voice situation happens and your friend who might have called you from overseas will get billed because hutch has a customer friendly policy and I think they do belive in old saying... ’’if speech is silver... silence is golden??!!’’

1.4. NETWORK BUSY POLICY..!You make a call to you doctor for an emergency...

the doctor is busy at his work so it take a few seconds for him to stop his work and come near the phone.. So instead of keeping the phone ringing you cut the call and decide you will ring back in a minute to give the person time to come to the phone... then you call back hoping that doctor has reached near the phone.... so that you can ask the doctor what could be done to help the dying patient...but... unfortunately what you are going to hear is network busy... because hutch believes that if a person does not attend the call first time .... he should not as well attend the next time as well...It was no so obvious until when the hutch network was busy while dialing to the number, it was possible to dial to another number. again, when the new number was dialled a second time for what I got was network busy.... Repeated trials made it obvious that possibly hutch has network busy policy !

1. WRONG BILLING TO ME... (AND TO ALL WHO NEVER REALIZED?!)

I was to get charged at Rs.1.50 per minute since I was maintaining a balance higher than Rs.200/-. It was working fine for all calls, but one day after making a call to a bsnl mobile I found I was <A href=’mailto:charged@rate’>charged@rate</A> 3/-. This I came to know only because of the new system of hutch which shows last call charges.....

Only calling customer care... the cc got confused but was courteous though ignorant and said that they will look into it since actually it was an error. I am glad to say they did rectify the mistake and I given back the money I was charged extra for with an apology. I DO APPRECIATE THAT. But since billing is computerised, if billing has gone wrong in one person it would imply a programming error, which would mean this would have as well happened to all other customers as well but since they have not known it..... well they can forget it... but yes they have rectified their error on hence will not be doubly billed to bsnl mobiles.

1. CUSTOMER CARE...(customer? who cares, I will get my salary... if not a new job itself??)

IGNORANCE OR ARROGANCE......CUSTOMER..... CARE (TAKE CARE FOR YOURSELF!

YOU ARE AT THE MERCY OF customer care agents.... deadlier than may secret service agents!) Well when I though customer care cell had only problem with ignorance....

I had a HORRIBLE time with ARROGANCE of ONE PARTICULAR CUSTOMER CARE AGENT.

As I had mentioned earlier, my calls were getting disconnected, but I never realized I was getting billed or my friend as there was no service message called service reply (cc agents are ignorant that the message which we get with balance is called service reply and this name was not coined by myself but rather that is what their message says.)

Other day, after hutch had wrongly billed I started checking my balance after each call to verify.So I then realized that I was getting billed on calls with no sound. and on the particular day,a call to particular VVIP number had the no sound problem. Since it was a VVIP line it was obvious that the problem was with hutch rather than with the other telecom company. So I called in to report the complaint. However, this customer care official was very stubborn that there was no problem with hutch connection. He was blaming it on the interconnectivity problem of the other telecom company and saying there was absolutely no problem. The argument really got hot and he was possibly talking to me as if he was my boss! Even after explaining to him that there is absolutely no problem with that particular number not only because it is a VVIP number and that too of that particular company official, but also that they do not have any problem with their phone and I especially am present at the spot and used that landline and had no fault.

This customer who cares agent was in no way ready to accept that there was a problem withtheir network, but went ahead to blame the other telecom company... all this while he was sitting in his customer care office and never having any cross verification inspite having in front of him on his computer database, the blunder in billing made by hutch... telling that

there is absolutely no problem with their network....I had to spend 15-20 minutes arguing with him before he finally heeded to taking complaint which was the only thing I wanted him to do in the first place.Even it was an interconnectivity problem with any other telecom as a customer it is not my business to go after another telecom company to find their fault, especially when calls to the same numbers which I tried from AIRTEL had absolutely no problem.I thought of complaining..... but..... if this customer care executive is so rude on phone... who knows what he will do when he comes face to face ?? help ... I might need body guards!! I felt HUTCH will realize the value of customers when they slowly lose their customers to Airtel, BSNL, Reliance, Spice, and Tata....just because SOME CUSTOMER CARE EXECUTIVES were never taught how to talk to their customer........and because some customer executive THINKS he is bigger

than Managing Director of Hutch..