Getting Screwed by Dialog

You know getting a new phone is generally a nice experience. Like a walk in the park and or eating ice cream on a hot day. It should not be an ordeal like natural child birth for instance. But this was my experience when the kind folks at Dialog decided to upgrade my phone.

Firstly for some strange reason they decided to disconnect my line. Even though all the bills were paid. When I checked it had been a mistake as someone one has requested a disconnection and given my number by mistake and these nincompoops have just gone and disconnected it without double checking who the number belonged to. That was just the starter.

Since the new phone was a black berry a technical assistant came to my office to transfer the information. And we realize that the charger of this phone is not working. He speaks to the technical division and tells someone that the charger is being sent please check it and replace it. I send the charger through a messenger as per this gentleman’s instructions and then we are told that you have to bring the phone along with the charger. How stupid is that? All they have to do is plug the charger to an available phone and see if it’s working or not.

So in the evening between meetings I personally take my phone and charger to their excel world office between meetings as it is the less stressful thing to do. I go to the technical division and they check the charger and finally agree it needs to be replaced. It takes over 30 minutes for the inspection and paper work and now and I am standing and waiting for all this to be done as there is not even a chair around that area. Now instead of giving me a replacement charger they give me a form which I need to take to customer service. They will do the necessary paper work and give me a charger which I need to bring back to technical so that they can check if it is in proper working order.

Once again I trudge to the other side of the building and wait till a customer service rep is free and go tell him my problem. Of course he is quite helpful but suddenly the system software is not working which means we have to wait another 30 minutes for everything to be figured out and finally I get my charger get it checked and step out of that place after wasting over an hour in there.

Now the entire customer service is done in all chrome and metal plate and looks extremely high tech but the service is years behind the appearance of the place. If not for the posh interior I would have assumed that I was in a government office. In fact they display signs saying if you are not happy please send a text to a number which I did. And I got a reply saying a customer service executive will call me to find out what the problem was. Of course till now I have not got a call regarding same.

Generally when competition sets in you pull up your socks. At least that’s what I thought modern organizations do. And I thought this company was one of or if not Sri Lanka’s most progressive company. Guess that was just an illusion.