Consumer Centric!!! In Heaven!

Back to the great days in Mysore, there was and there is still an organization called Mysore Grahaka Parishat with focus on consumerism. The MGP, as it is fondly called fights for the consumers and for that matter had even written against Art of Living on Churumuri, where apparently the great Sri Sri Sri’s NGO has been swallowing money in terms of service. I am usually lazy to write in about my experiences as a consumer, it has been long since I wrote either here or as a letter of experience to a local newspaper!

The very reason for this post is that, I am appalled by the services/ response from India’s premier online store, Indiaplaza.in this time around. Previously I have shopped with Indiaplaza and have had decent shopping experiences, but at a critical time, I was their consumer bearing the burnt of lies and non-delivery! So here goes my story!

– 3rd of August – I was supposed to have the book Groundswell dispatched by Indiaplaza, but I still see the status as Being Processed. I patiently and politely raise a ticket

– Immediate response, we can ship it only by the 10th of August! Wow!!!! Well I almost gave up, but still trusted the site as it had the name India. And the link on my order still says the book will be dispatched by 3rd!

– Santosh or someone was the CSR mailing me, I raised another ticket to him asking weather my book was on time as 10th was the delivery date given earlier, until then, no communication from Indiaplaza! – He seeks an extension by another day and well, yes you guessed it right, August 11th, the book still did not arrive!

– I was deeply disappointed and dashed another ticket on 12th and phat – here is the respone – Dear Amar, We will ship the book on 16th Aug,We deeply regret for the delay in shipping the order, Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to you.

– Wow! on 13th I felt, I could order the book from another premium online bookstore which promised the delivery in two days and it did and well later on, I raised another ticket asking indiaplaza to put me across a lead so that I could escalate my complaint or pull back my order.

– With that if I was a CSR, I would have forwarded the issue to a lead and here in Indiaplaza, the person in charge, closes my ticket, replies back – This book is currently out of stock and has been cancelled. Wow and their site still read that the book is on stock on that day!

My question here was why the CSR made me wait over 15 days to communicate this message! Is this the consumer experience we are offered? And as I type this post, I still have not received a clue on the refund I was supposed to get on that book and their call centers seem to be eternally busy!

This is where I feel organizations like MGP have a role to play and we as consumers need to understand our rights and expect the retailers to adhere to our rights! I hope Indiaplaza will tune in to listen to the voice of their customer from now on at least.

Chennai Beat!

Rarely you go out because you want to get out of something that you do not want to do! Well, I did that yesterday and guess what leaving my AC room, I headed to hot and boiling Chennai! Of course the reason was not just that, almost all of India’s telcos have disconnected my phone due to address verification issues and I had to personally Dive In to their one and only store in Chennai to get it rectified! Whew… its high time they start traveling on ECR and see what all is around!

The trip was good in the fact that I used almost every accessible mode of transport except waterways in Chennai! But well it still surprises me that one of the upcoming GSM major in India has just one Dive In store for the whole of Chennai in a place called Chetpet. I had to change a one bus and one train to go to Chetpet and trust me, it somewhat brought back the memories of…. Yes… The London Tubes…. 🙂

The trains in Chennai are not as great as the tubes, but well the maps very much resemble the tube maps, but are very simple to understand. I know people who struggled to understand the color coding etc… in the London Tube map, and the maze that it resembles, but Chennai just seems to be one tenth of that size and is not complicated. The trains were clean and decent and may be worth trying once or twice, if you hop down here – just as a tourist.

Then on I headed to Mt. Road, after hearing all about it being the widest road in Chennai. Yes, true it was and had all decent looking buildings, but I was a little bit let down. I was informed that Chennai’s best mall Spencers Plaza is on Mt Rd and trust me, it is like Jayanagar Shopping Complex in namma Bengalooru. I was looking for a mall like structure and took ten mins. to figure out that this was really a mall!!! Anyway got the normal bite that I wanted there – The Australian Cookieman! and then headed back to Manamai, having COSTLY tender coconuts on the way! Got to run to a guest lecture, so will probably cut the blog short, even though I may have more to write. But before that, some snaps of Mt. Rd.

Mount Road

Mount Road - Another Shot