Dial 'M' for marketing success

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">BANGALORE: When Rashmi made an international call from her BSNL landline and spoke to her sister in California for over 45 minutes, she got a call from the BSNL office, five minutes later, asking her politely if any 50-minute ISD call had been made from that number. Incidentally, this to double check there was no tampering and rigging.<br /><br />A far cry from the kind of indifferent service BSNL was known for.<br /><br />Today, BSNL with over 10 lakh landline connections and around 7 lakh mobile subscribers is a transformed monolith.Glitches still exist but at least they are recognised and most are being looked into.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Clear line</span><br /><br />Says Ramaganapathy, chief general manager, Karnataka Circle, BSNL, "The future looks very bright. With our infrastructure, we are able to give a coverage at price points that are unparalleled by any other private operator. I do agree that we were not really service-oriented - there were complaints about our attitude but we are trying to change."<br /><br />No doubt when the private operators breezed in four years ago with snazzy hoardings and attractive telecom packages, BSNL took a hit - connections were surrendered and everyone wanted the new Tata Indicoms and Touchtels in their living room - with courteous service at their doorstep.<br /><br />But now, BSNL has taken a leaf out of their marketing books and is onto their game. Today although nine out of 23 customer service centres operate from 8 am to 8pm, our ultimate aim is to help the customer avoid that trip to the centre - we want him to resolve his problems over the telephone," R.K. Arnold, principal general manager, Bangalore Telecom, points out.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Still crackling</span><br /><br />But not all the problems have completely disappeared. No doubt tampering is down. Connections are given at a much faster rate, the waiting list continues get shorter and fault complaints are getting less, (6 per 100 per month as compared to 15 per 100 per month two years back). As for cellular coverage, the number of base stations for cellular phones has also doubled to 253 in the past one year.<br /><br />Despite all this BSNL is still somewhat of a huge rock to deal with. Says Vivek Pai (77), "Twice to get my BSNL connection - the persons concerned were not in their seat."<br /><br />The top brass is aware of the serious drawback on the service front. "We are conducting a number of courses to make our employees realise that today''s scenario is completely different from what it was a couple of years back," adds Arnold.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Broadband future</span><br /><br />Now, BSNL is clamouring on the broadband pipe to offer faster downloads (3-4 times more than the present dial-up) of data, songs and videos and at the same time not engage the telephone line.<br /><br />Called DataOne, it is yet to clear all its teething problems but once they are cleared up, applications are limitless. For instance, movie lovers at home would not have to go to a shop to rent a video — they can call up a movie exchange (which could be set up by an enterprising video owner) and just dial and watch his favourite movie at home.<br /><br />That are just a few of the favourite things of BSNL - if it gets the right dial tone.<br /></div> </div>