Cafe Coffee Day - A coffee without a smile...

Few days back I visited with my gal to a Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) at canaught place, new delhi. While seated we noticed a big poster saying if your coffee comes without a smile take it free. And we just discussed if the coffee guy will really place it with a smile....

And this did not happen... Taking it lightly while paying at the counter as were in a bit hurry I told the person at billing counter that you guys announce to provide free coffee in case it misses a smile and was surprised to see an ignorant gesture.

I was just thinking that its better to try to apply such things without a publicity. For me this incident bought down the CCD's image...

Hyderabad Central Put Customers in the Corner

Yesterday, I went to one of the oldest Shopping Mall 'Hyderabad Central' in punjagutta. I bought a wrist watch and there was an offer to get microwave bowls of worth 2000 by paying only 450.

I was anyhow feeling the need of that stuff so decided to buy. So here are the seriously annoying things that turned my mood off.

1. The titan outlet from where I bought the watch told they do not carry even the Titan cover to wrap it and only Hyderabad Central printed cover can be provided. That too from the billing counter.

2. Once I went to billing counter to collect the cover and asked for buying the micowave bowls as per offer he asked me to go to 3rd floor for that. That sounded me bad to un-necessary route the customer.

3. Anyways, I went there and found just one person trying to help out everyone and in a way resulting in annoying everyone. Not the fault of the person but the management to keep just one person where they know more will be required. Where you can imagine to complain for such things when that happens within customer care center.

4. After some struggle I finally got the stuff for which they did not provided me the bill. I did not realized it as I was in hurry. I have to gift it so asked for the gift wrap for which they directed me to go to basement. What a pain to just move up and down for buying a single item. To make a note Hyderabad Central pretty proudly announces that they believe in customer satisfaction. I found it completely missing.

5. With no choice I went to basement and asked the person to gift wrap. And the awesome reply was "Sir, we do not gift wrap complementary items". I was pretty annoyed and said boss I have paid 450 bucks for this. Then how it is complementary? He did not listen for the same for first 10 mins and then finally said ok show me the bill for this. Asking for the bill made sense to me but this should have been the first response from him. There I realized that the customer care did not gave me the bill at all. So, I asked him to pack it and put the bill number for the watch I bought. He said he need to ask for that. I said sure and for which he said I do not have any phone/intercom to call to customer care and he cannot leave the desk. As per him, in fact on the entire floor there is no intercom even for emergency situations.

6. This finally made me another trip to 3rd floor to get the bill for which the person was simply not surprised and gave me a bill. In fact he asked: "Why? Is someone asking for it?". This was pretty unexpected to me. They are supposed to provide the bill even if customer does not ask and the guy was asking me a question like why I need that. This is just against the law which Hyderabad central seems to be violating frequently.

Make My Trip -- Break My Trip

So, this is a very annoying incident happened recently when I had mistakenly planned to book my trip using www.makemytrip.com.
My 4 relatives were planning to travel from Delhi to Banglore and asked me to help out in bookings. I went ahead and did a booking. Few hours later when I went to print the itinerary I realized I did a wrong booking and booked from Delhi to Hyderabad instead of Delhi to Banglore.  As I am living  in hyderabad for last 4+ years so kinda of easy to digest mistake for me. Anyways, so there was option other than canceling the ticket and wasting 3250 as cancellation charges and booking the right tickets. So, to cancel I logged on to makemytrip.com once again and tried to cancel. System refused me to do so as there was an infant traveling. For any reasons I did not bother much and thought to do that later online.
So, I just decided to book the correct tickets again and I did so. After this I had finally 2 itineraries one from Delhi to Banglore (the correct one) and the another from Delhi to Hyderabad (to be cancelled via customer care). I called to customer care and they took almost an hour to final attend my call.  I told them the situation and asked them to cancel the itinerary from Delhi to Hyderabad. After spending some 20 minutes the care guy told me it is done.


Few hours later, I went to cyber cafe to get a printout of the Del-Blr itinerary for the next day scheduled departure. And was shocked to see that the customer care guy Canceled the wrong tickets. I had to call to customer care again and had to wait for about more than an hour to be attended. Customer Care replied that they cannot do anything at the moment but if its a mistake from their side then they will pay back the cancellation charges plus the fare difference between the wrongly canceled flight and the next booking for the same flight by me. Fair enough. I disconnected.


And, after this I waited for 10 days for amount to be paid back by Break (make) my trip and found only the fare returned after deducting the cancellation charges. This made me loss 3250 as the cancellation fee and around 2500 increased fare for booking the same flight again. I called to customer care (must mention same 1 hr wait time on phone) to know about the status of my complaint number IN0910R0064497 and found that they are still not sure about that.  I repeated the incidence and they assured to get back within 2 hours. After waiting for another 3 days I had to call again to know about it again to suffer again for another hour in the wait queue to get another assurance of refunding money within another 2-3 days.
That did not end here and I had to call Break My Trip again (this time with a wait time of 2 hours) finally with another assurance of refunding it within 10 days. I patiently waited for that much time again and finally forced to write this blog so that other people make sure not to book through makemytrip.com for any reasons.
Few very annoying things:
1. Wait time of over 1 hours in the call.
2.  Just asking the incidence freshly from the customer even after providing the complaint number. Which they should bother to open and go through.
3. Definitely the repetitive assurance for refunding money.
4. And, false promises to call back in 2 hours and never do that.


Update 1: Finally after a month of struggle they returned my money. Was such a pain. Guys be careful !!!

La belle Poor Services with Extremely Poor Attitude

Last week I went to La Belle (http://www.labelle.in) in banjara hills branch, Hyderabad to try our their facial services as I got a gift coupon from shopper's stop. It was a great disappointment to be there...

Here is what I found seriously bad:

1. Chairs used for treatment were too uncomfortable and I guess my small home town (Bhiwani) hair saloon s has got much better chairs.

2. The person who was doing the treatment kept on pausing the facial session just to talk about his mobile issues with someone coming in the room (might be his colleague).

3. They have made the facial bed just under the AC and requesting to raise the temperature or switching off is considered for just few minutes and then it is put back to the original state.

4. They talked to me about a tan bleach treatment to be done on face and back. Here, I understand the meaning of word 'back' something entirely different than they meant. They meant by it the back side of neck. Simply ridiculous to pay 750 for putting a bleach cream for less 2 min on face and neck and wiping it off saying you just spend 750.

5. Anyhow when I came out of the session and ask for the feedback, the receptionist asked "was it good?" And I replied "It was pathetic". She pointed to me the feedback form and moved back to whatever she was doing.

Latest updates: Today morning I got a call from La belle asking how was the experience and I told I am not satisfied. I did not get the value for my money. And the reply was: "oh sorry, any suggestions for the improvements?". I said bullshit and cut the call.

So, a must not go place...

Update 1: Got another Call from Banjara Hills Branch to offer complimentary services with apology and to make me happy. They told that they will terminate the staff and want me to come once again for the complete satisfaction. I agreed.

Update 2: I got an email from La belle customer care as well asking for the account number to refund the whole amount. This was interesting but confused me that they are going to refund the amound and providing complementary service as well or its a new decision. Anyways, I immediately replied with my account details. Will update on further happenings.

Update 3: Got one more call from La belle banjara hills branch for visiting to them again. I did it this time and they apologized for the issues and offered me to go through any service I like. They insisted to take some more services absolutely free of cost. This was really awesome and a great gesture from the branch supervisor. I was given a special attention and someone kept monitoring on how the things are going on in every 5-10 min. I loved it and realized that they really mean business.

Indigo - Secret of running low cost

So, here is a fresh incident when on oct 22 I was traveling from Delhi to Hyderabad between 8:30 to 10:30 PM through Indigo Airlines.  Around half way when crew announced about the meals to be served who pre-ordered for that. All of a sudden I too started feeling hungry.  I was traveling after about 6 months to a domestic airline so was even surprised to know that now it is required to tell about food requirement at the time of ticket booking (still not sure).

Anyways, I was still sure that they must be having some extra stuff for me. So, I pressed the button and asked the hostess who attended me if anything veg is available. And she replied to get back on that. She was pretty quick and with a charming smile told 'parantha' is available but it's cold. Thinking better to have some acidity because of a cold stuff rather a hot starvation I said yes please give me that.

I don't blame airlines to charge ridiculously high these days so agreed for a price of 120 bucks as menu indicated and gave a Rs 500 note. She took the note and replied she is not having enough change and will return in some time (of course with a smile :). I was fine with that and so went back to relax for rest of the time. I kind of forgot about the remaining money as I was assure not to worry about it. Guess what? She did not return to me at all which I realized just after getting down.

On my side the fault was trusting to get the change back and kind of forgetting about it. But should this really be expected from the airlines staff? It's simply not ethical and definitely not the right way to manage business running on low costs :D

Trip for a lifetime

Wow those 3 days full of life. Every moment full of energy. May be i can recall where it started but not possible to say if it ever ended. So many things so many experiences all for a good reason conspired to fall in those 3 short days. Looks like even a blink takes more time than those days could survive. It's fun and more than enough even if a single first taste sets you on cloud 9 and here it was a treasure of first time everlasting experiences.

Hard to beat the adrenal rushing in the blood when chopper inclines by 80 degrees to change the direction. That 2 min ride at Hoover dam for mere 29$ was worth winning a 20 million jackpot at ph casinos in Vegas. Even before this mesmerizing experience there was a lot that happened to add the colors on this trip. I voluntarily skipped my SFO to LA flight for 320$ southwest airlines offer.

Anyways back to the Hoover dam from where we headed to grand canyon. I was not sure before reaching what exactly the place is for and I was not even willing to ask to take it a surprise. As we approached towards the canyon it reminded me of my last years great trip with Oliver to Yosemite national parks. However last 20 Miles ride was pretty rough to canyon due to under construction roads. And finally when reached it was albeit rainy over there. By the time we reached for the skywalk it already started raining. It was really an added joy to look into the infinity from the skywalk 5 layered glass floor. Sahar, Athar, n Kiran were not in mood to get
drenched so walked quickly over the sky missing almost everything American tourism estimated $60 per head. N there were two fun loving souls on the glass floor along with worried Nayab for her hairs getting straightened due to rain. It was a divine experience for the evils roaring in joy leaving no one else but 3.j But for the high risk of lightning we were forced to leave the skywalk by care takers. We took pics like crazy over there and finally headed for camping which was a 4 hours drive. After covering more than 70% distance we realized that may be we are too tired for the camping. That said within 5 min we took a u-turn towards Vegas. It was already around 9 so thought to have dinner and look for a motel to stay overnight. Pizza hut had good veggies to feed us and Marriott had good mattresses to let us fell unconscious. Kiran's $70 saving on armed official discount made it a great deal.

And then there was a lovely morning, and the shouts from Vegas pulling us to dive into a all new world set to spark a spot in the deserts of Arizona. We reached to Vegas around 2pm and looked for an Indian cuisine. Himayalya Indian cum Nepalese cuisine was descent and much higher than my expectations in taste. We already had a booking in hotel Rinahossence in Vegas that I would say was a lavish hotel with a fascinating large indoor 24hrs pool n spa. We were in no mood waste time to pamper our laziness so did a quick check in and moved out of hotel leaving Vicky.

Looks like the night at Vegas deserves a whole new post to mention those precious moments full of energy shouting "whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"

Old Age Homes..

Today, I visited an old age home running as an NGO in the Kondapur area of Hyderabad, India. A very pleasant environment full of life... Few were moving here and there.. some were sitting under the sun-shine and few were sitting alone reading newspaper or just sitting idle.

I moved inside the NGO premises looking for the administration block or some care taker. And, the reason was to get a chance to interact with them and to do something for them. I had a very clear intention, built by the last night Sakshum's meeting with Janish, Vinayaka, Ajeet and Neeti. That is to find a way for serving these people for their needs. Certainly, we had no money to donate but we were willing to build a long term relationship with such organizations and help them as much as we can.

Anyways, I asked an old man there about the office and he directed me. I moved some 200 meters in the suggested direction and found a block indicating Office. I went inside and peeped in to one of the rooms there. An old lady and an old man were sitting there. They invited me inside. I introduced my self as Vivek, a volunteer of Sakshum. I said "Sakshum is a group of 8-10 dedicated people who are committed to do something good for the society".

She introduced herself as a manager over there and oriented me about old age home. She told me that they are serving around 95 aged people here. She told me, as such they don't need any volunteer services. they are just in short of budget and looking for that. If you guys can help us then we will buy emergency lights and printer for our computer. I was a lil shocked at the reply "as such we don't need any volunteer services..." . But, I was kept listening. She told me that they had good libraries there, full time employees for the care of the residents. But, for all these maintenance they need good money. She continued that they were no profit no loss organization so, they rely on donations only.

I was feeling quite bad the way she was using the word money or donation in her every sentence. I had an impression that probably they don't charge anything from residents. To confirm I asked her that so you don't charge anything from the old people here? And, the reply was..." Nothing is free here...they all pay on monthly basis from their pensions or earned interest from their deposited money in banks etc." I was really thinking hard that what sort of NGO it was? Just a name which is used for extracting money in terms of donations, land from govt and, govt employees for care taking etc.

She asked me about my contact details and said we would contact us in case they need some help. She thanked me for visiting.. I showed my interest about interacting with the people there. She told.. no not required as such as they were already intellectual people and had their own groups. I said fine and came back.

On the way, back to home I was just thinking about it and lost my focus from driving... After I reached home, I called to Janish, Ajeet and others and told about the incidence. Finally, we dropped the plan to visi the old age home in the evening..

Even after sharing this experience a number of times to all the Sakshum volunteers I was still not able to come out of it and thought for blogging....

I am really hurt.. that how things could be exploited on the name of social services....