I never imagined myself writing such an Article about Jordan. Foremost we as Jordanians try to reflect a good image of our country to attract more investors and tourists. But enough is enough! after all If we don’t take serious actions or at least a stand towards bad customer service and experience the good image reflected will back fire at us! This post is dedicated to all Telco providers in Jordan specially Orange.
I will not start telling stories on behalf of other people, this is my story below:
I have a post paid subscription with Orange called Club 45 (most expensive VIP subscription). My bill was sent to me on first week of May. Since then I tried really hard to pay the bill with all suggested methods: visiting a branch or paying it online. I tried visiting almost all Orange branches in our beloved capital (Amman) but guess what, dozens of people are there before you making a huge queue. You keep on waiting and waiting 15, 20, 30, not even 45 minutes and still waiting. Not enough chairs to sit, bad air ventilation, no conditioning and people are sweating big time, high humidity, and on the top of that everyone’s mobile phone is ringing! I surrendered and went back to work. Next morning I wanted to play it smart, so I decided to go very early, did not even have breakfast just headed directly to their main branch. Guess what?!! A longer queue than yesterday! :-s I felt really frustrated! I tried getting in touch with Orange using their customer service number 1777 but no luck, either you keep on holding for 10 minutes and get automatically disconnected or you get disconnected being told that a long queue is ahead! I kept on visiting branches and trying to call them but no luck at all, as if they don’t want you to pay your bill, they just want to disconnect your line. 2 weeks later (that is today) my line was disconnected because I could not pay the bill, not because I don’t want to (even though the network coverage really sucks) but because they simply try not to facilitate the process. I was pretty much mad and furious, I went to the branch and wanted to get to a resolution, I need my mobile phone back, I can’t survive without it! After yelling and fighting my way through dozens of angry subscribers standing in the queue, a fresh graduate student was handling the customers. I explained my situation and she refused to let me pay the bill and she said I have to get back in the queue, After a big fight the branch manager pops in and sarcastically and with no respect he tells me if you are so busy try paying online using your credit card. hallelujah.. I felt saved!
I did not wait to fight anymore so I called one of my colleges on my way back to work and asked him to pay it online. He calls me back after a while saying that their e-payment sucks and it crashes after you enter your credit card information. I was like maybe it’s Windows or Internet Explorer, after all we blame Microsoft for the half of our problems, luckily I had an Ubuntu machine back home, tried it, same thing, a CRASH.. Tried it on different browsers, same thing A CRASH!! I call them up and after waiting for almost 4 hours retrying every 15 minutes and holding with the representative for 10 minutes, he get’s back to me saying that the collections department will call me back in 5 minutes. I refused to hang up and said I’ll wait or transfer my call. But not use, had to hang up!
Absolutely, your guess is right, no one called not even after 2 hours!
Again had to go through the painful process of waiting in queue, explaining the story to the call center guy again, holding on the phone for 10 minutes. Same answer the collections department will get back to me, i refused so I got transferred to the supervisor, had to tell the story again and also no answer.. They can’t confirm if they deducted the money so I have to wait for my friends bank statement to come up or listen to the supervisor’s advice: go to a branch, get a mobile chair like the ones used in camping trips, an extra battery for your laptop, a small fan to get some breeze, and a bottle of water. Is this an advice you get from a customer support supervisor!! I felt pretty much offended and mad.. So beside their bad network coverage, very expensive roaming charges, and their suicidal billing centers.. Their customer service is even worse! I can’t imagine how it is for non VIP subscribers or maybe they don’t even classify their customers!
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