India is Changing - BSNL/MTNL Vs Bharti Airtel and Reliance Commn

"India is Changing", shouted Ravi, coming in.

“What a cliché! That was the logo of the last decade” I said.

“You are mistaken! It’s a full circle now. We are going back to old days”, smiled Ravi and started describing the events.

Ravi is relocated to an Mumbai and took up a new job with India’s leading telecommunications service provider. As an engineer who looks after the communication services for millions of consumer, he thought his company was the best Telecom company in the country.

One week into the job, Ravi enquired how can he get all the communication facilities at his new residence. As he and team boasts about the triple play (voice, data, video from the same cable/wire), he asked the personal business on how to get the connection at his home. The personal business redirected him to approach the commercials. The commercials asked him to approach the service outlet in his neighborhood. Now the service outlet doesn’t know anything called triple play. After many visits to many other departments Ravi decided to go “one play” at a time. That is, first get a land line, then data and then video. The outlet help desk replied that they don’t know whether the apartment complex is served by his company or not.

After doing many rounds like that, Ravi started pondering for the definition of customer service. Nobody in business is bothered about what the end user’s requirements are. If an employee’s experience is like this, then what would be the aam admi’s plights?

On that Saturday evening, walking back home from the customer care center of the India’s biggest private sector telecom company, Ravi came across the state run telecom service provider MTNL’s office. Just curious to know, what are these competitor’s offering to the customer, Ravi went to the security outpost outside the state run telecom company. At 7:30 in the evening, the guard gave a warm smile and asked Ravi to talk to the executive sitting in side the office.

“India is changing!!” roared Ravi. He was absolutely surprised to find the state run telecom company to be open at 7:30 in the evening and that too on a Saturday and the staff is warm enough to invite him to talk to them.

As Ravi entered the office, the executive who was on a phone, concluded her conversation, apologized for not attending him immediately. She went on to describe all the offers available and handed over an application form and a checklist of documents to be submitted.

Within 4 days, Ravi has MTNL's land telephone with National and International (STD/ISD) call facility, a high speed broadband service, a beta version of IPTV service.

“Its time that the Bharti’s and Ambani’s learn from the state run telecom company. Customer Service should not be just in slogans. It should be in action” concluded Ravi.