King Customer can be so dumb sometimes!
Hi Readers,
This is a real life incident. I was working in Positive Electronics Ltd. that assembled Salora Television. This was way back in 1994. The era of black and white TV was still on….it still is in India at least. So I was PRO (Public Relation Officer) and my job responsibility was to take down complaints and send the TV mechanics to set it right. I had to fill a form were the name, address, model no. of the TV, whether colored or B/W etc had to be furnished. The most important field was Near location because often the Service Mechanics used to return with the message ‘House Not Found’. A ‘house not found’ meant re-allotment of job and couple of screaming calls from the customer. Most customers spoke either in Hindi or Bengali, there was hardly any who spoke English.
We all know abbreviations on phone can be very confusing – like P can also sound like D or B so in order to avoid confusion when someone says SP Mukherjee Road, we re-confirm asking – Simla-Patna you mean..and mostly it is understood by even the wee bit educated person!
So one day a customer called me up- (don’t remember the exact address just the essence)
Customer – My address is D.B Road, blah blah..
Me- You mean Delhi- Bangalore Road, blah Blah
Customer literally screamed at me!
Customer – I said I live in Kolkata – why are you bringing Delhi or Bangalore in between?
Me – Ok, is it delta-beta?
Customer screamed all the more! He continued screaming and I had to put the phone down. Although I was also very angry being screamed at early in the morning, but later I was both amused and surprised at the IQ level of TV owners…..in West Bengal. Jai Ho!
