Wed, 22 Jul 1998

Indovision and customer service

Keith Loveard's explanation in his letter Indovision responds (July 14) failed to impress me. I am a subscriber to Indovision TV-Kabel. I am not sure whether they are the same company.

I rang Indovision in early May requesting a connection. After numerous attempts a technician came on line and said if we could take two connections it could be done in three days but for one connection I had to wait a month. In the meantime we left the country due to the riots and on my return pursued the matter again.

After six or eight attempts a technician was dispatched in the second week of June. (The connection was going to be a birthday gift for my son as the school holidays were approaching). The team arrived and promptly advised me that they could not give me the connection as there was no Active Cable and asked me to sign an invoice for Rp 642,500 (US$46). I was irate and refused to sign.

After about 10 days another team arrived and said yet another team would come four days later and the connection was duly installed. No phone calls. No apologies from the organization regarding the earlier episode.

For the past three days I've not been receiving channel 35- Sony in Hindi (Indian). When I rang it took 10 attempts and 45 minutes (the company is opposed to 24-hour service) to get the relevant person on line. The receptionist picked up the phone with a Sore/Siang (good evening/good afternoon), no Selamat (hello), no introduction, nothing and then switched me to another extension. I didn't even know whether she acknowledged me.

The employee who finally came on line said: "We have moved our machines. I will tell the technician." Three days on and still the problem is not rectified. So I rang again (took me six attempts and half an hour, the service must be improving). The staff member said: "Oh, yes, we are not transmitting Sony for a week but URT is on".

Why were we not informed of this change? Why two versions of an answer for the same problem? Why the delay in just picking up the phone? Why the irritation to do what they are paid to do? Why such poor coordination between the various departments? Why must customers pay for these inefficiencies?

S. HADYA

Jakarta