Honda's car music system design is inspired by the Da Vinci Code and Tata Sky keeps Martian timing - really!

They tell you to count till ten if you are angry and if that does not help then count 10 more. But maybe we need to stop doing that and be angry. I am sure all of you who read this will have your own horror stories of horrendous customer service given by so-called reputed firms, but please bear with me as I rant and rave. The companies in question are Honda Motors- specifically Arya Honda their authorized dealer in Mumbai, Tata Sky (DTH home service) and Eureka Forbes- the guys who made door to door sales a successful phenomenon in India.

Let us begin with the best one yet- The Arya Honda story. My driver managed to ruin our factory fitted stereo system by adding an extra CD into the system. Luckily it was still under warranty so the system was promptly replaced. (You are already thinking “so what is she complaining about?”- bear with me please). The rude shock came when I asked the service center for my CDs that were in the original player. And guess what I got instead of my stuff- the guy at Arya Honda gave me some bull shit about the design of the player being such that no one can open it without damaging all the CDs inside. Reminded me about that little cylinder in the Da Vinci Code where the paper inside would dissolve in vinegar if the letters were not aligned properly! Surely Honda should sell this design to the military for sealing secret documents. I have spoken to the dealer and even gotten the number of the zonal head and can only hope they have more credible explanations.

Now to move to my water woes. As a blessed part of the small group of people on this thirsty planet who are lucky enough to be able to afford clean drinking water, I have installed an Aquaguard in my house. It took me 8 phone calls and close to a month to get it installed from their “24 Hour” response centre and it is almost De Ja Vu when I am trying to get the mysterious disappearance of water flow checked out. I have made three phone calls and all I get is a tele-service executive with a horrendous accent and a script to verify my name, number and address and a canned line that “they are surprised as to why the service engineer is not picking up my request!”. Surely there has to be a way that unattended calls pop-up on the dashboard of a manager. Surely Eureka Forbes has a simple software that lets it monitor the efficiency of the people it has put in charge of after sales service. In this economic down turn when millions are losing their jobs and demand is drying up why are donkeys and asses being allowed to run organizations and keep their jobs?

And finally the people at Tata Sky who actually got a letter of commendation from me because dad felt their service was excellent. I get charged Rs.350 for a service engineer visit because I am a loyal customer who has had their service for over a year. And all he does is come home and tell me that the call centre guy did not walk me through the whole set up and that as a “precaution” he has switched the connections of my two receiver boxes. I am still waiting for the 24 hours to finish so that I can get my clarification. Surely they must have a Martian clock because the clocks on earth have already finished more than 72 hours.