Customer, No Care!


This Sunday, when petrol dealers decided to stay at home leaving vehicle owners high and dry along the highways, we (I, wife, kids and  a cousin brother) were among many who were calling up to the heavens to help our cars push a few miles more before the fuel tank ran dry. 
The Civil Supplies Corp-operated fuel pumps had also exhausted stock by afternoon, and for the first time since I started driving, we just hoped to see at least a Reliance fuel station somewhere on our way (someone had told me that they aren’t part of the Sunday Shut Down). But that was not to be, as the last one (as per the World Wide Web) on our way was somewhere in Alappuzha and we had rode past it already. (Hope Mr Ambani realises he has a good business opportunity on Kerala’s highways! Go for the kill, dude.)
And then, suddenly, the yellow indicator screamed out to me that I was on reserve fuel. Tension started building up and we were making plans to check into a hotel en route and resume journey the next morning. But then, as cousin bro suggested, we quickly dialled the Maruti Customer Care to know how far the remaining fuel would take us.
Excerpts (not verbatim, though) from the conversation that followed:
Us: Hello, Is this Maruti Customer Care?
Them: Yes sir, how can I help you?
Us: Okay, we just wanted to know what distance would an Ertiga petrol vehicle travel on reserve fuel after the low fuel indicator lights up?
Them: Oh SORRY, we won’t be able to tell you that as it depends on each city.
Us: We just need an approximate number. You may give us an approx. distance as it’s a must that we know from you.
Them: Sorry, I’m afraid we won’t be able to help you. We don’t have the figures to tell you.
Don’t have the figures even after so many years of ruling the Indian road? Just a question included in your umpteen feedback calls to new Maruti Suzuki car owners would have given you the numbers for each road and highway! One driver’s feedback could be another driver’s bible, at least in times of a crisis. And, after all we asked you for only the approx. numbers, didn’t we?
Convinced that the Customer Care is manned by aliens from another world, we continued to drive on. In the meantime, wifey looked up the Net to know what other Ertiga owners thought about the reserve distance that the vehicle would run. The answer was of course there. User reviews on the Net had provided the info. We were glad to find the Ertiga would easily run 39 to 40 km on reserve fuel (petrol, in this case). And we drove on.
Lady Luck and the local deity Parabrahmam seemed to have conspired to get things right for us and soon we spotted a petrol station along the Ochira-Kollam highway awaiting us. The vehicle had its fill and we drove home in gay abandon, with the air conditioner and music player switched on.
The hilariously silly add on to the above narrated story happened the very next morning. As the customer care was contacted from the cousin brother’s phone, he started getting calls right from the next morning.
Maruti dealers from umpteen spots in south Kerala have been making it a point to call him, offering him a good deal on the new Ciaz awaiting buyers in showrooms. He had to keep on explaining to them that the call made the previous day was related to an urgent fuel enquiry, and not because he was planning to buy a new car. But then, they never wanted to give up.
The calls continue to land on his phone! He just called me to say he has gone mad and tired of responding to Ciaz sellers!
Hey Maruti Suzuki Guys, if you are somewhere out there and sane, stop offering carrots when someone asks you for a sip of water, and that too, after 24 hours have run past you!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Bejewelled, in Green Ratnagiri is like Sri Ragam from the vocal chords of the maestro of Maharajapuram. The showers that add bliss to beauty is akin to the Kunnakkudi magician in accompaniment. Ratnagiri has given me the bliss of a lifetime, amidst all that nature could do to me on my way back home from somebody’s Mumbai to someone else’s Trivandrum. It’s just Entharo Mahanubhavulu reverberating inside me as I visualize the bejeweled mountain range as the dream maiden decked up in lush green. Ratnagiri is nature’s golf course. From start to the horizon yonder, it’s all green - curvy and smooth. Laidback and lustful, she lies on her back inviting my gaze as I perch precariously inside a rickety MSRTC people mover. Who all should I thank for gifting me this experience of a life time? Gratitude is due to the Konkan Railway, to buddies Sangeetha and Anirudh, the rain gods, my mindset and the power within that makes me dream. It all happened on a Sunday afternoon, en route to Padmanabha’s o
Read more

And Then, The Cashew Tree Shed a Dozen Leaves

Image
The courtyard that once regaled in our antics has fallen mute. Thorny bush and fallen twigs now hold the space to ransom. No laughter, no rejoicing, as the house in the middle draws a deep breath as I walk towards it. The disappointment, I gather, is due to the fact that it is just I, not We, that walk towards the house that have seen four footsteps run in and out in unison, for long. I stop. The terrace above beholds, beckons. The terrace I would never want to climb on to! The elevated platform, just a flight of steps above the ground where we once planted tapioca stumps and bowled against with tennis balls. The cursed space where he lay lifeless! A call away lay, as if breathing her last, the pond that let us swim into her womb. The post-harvest paddy fields where we shed all teen inhibitions to sprint, jump, dive, climb, swim and fight, shed tears as I look yonder. For, they all had expected Us - both of Us together   - to have come calling. But then, it is jus
Read more

2020: Virus Woes and Much More

Image
  WHAT makes a good year? Happiness? Fulfilment? Success? There could be much more than that. May be, its pessimism that has made a good year this time around. Pessimism isn’t bad after all, or I would want to believe so, for once. A year wrapped in pandemic woes of a global scale is what we have had in 2020. Life in 2020 has been nothing more than a 20-over cricket match whose outcome may not be known even when the succeeding year gets into its midway path. And yet, hope reigns supreme, pinned on a vaccine that might even be left bamboozled by the sheer failure of it. No one knows if the vaccine would work. A couple or more of first triers have been taken ill, paving the way for pessimism to creep in. Will the vaccine work or not, may well be left to be dealt within the scientific domain, but for lesser earthlings like you and I, Year 2020 has been a year of possibilities. Think about it, and you would realise that we had scores of opportunities that slithered into our laps and mind
Read more