Roundabout Dubai

Six Bills Only!

Yes, you're right, the existence of the word 'bills' in the title of this post means that it's about the one and only: Etisalat! Please don't read it as another whining piece, but rather in the spirit of observing a little misadventure and perhaps some fact-sharing!

I usually pay my bills using phone banking, which is just great; however this time I collected my DEWA and Etisalat bills 10 days later than usual from my work address (isn’t it funny how our work address here becomes our home address?). Phone banking takes 2 days to register; so I was a bit concerned about being disconnected. My main fear was of course DEWA, where cutting electricity and water services in this time of year is akin to extreme inconvenience if not out right misery. But I was also apprehensive of losing phone and internet connections.

So Wednesday on my way to DEWA I stopped first at the Etisalat office by Defense Roundabout; it was close to 11:00. I haven’t been there in a while, so I was a little surprised to see there was sonly one person in the queue and that there were somewhat longer queues at the 2 or 3 bill paying machines. Anyway my turn came quickly and I headed to one of the 3 open windows and handed the lady in black my 3 bills. She looked at them and then said flatly, “less than six bills must pay at the machine!” I looked perplexed; so she explained, “only six bills or more at the window; don’t you see the sign?” and she pointed to a sign that escaped my attention with that same message.

And then it hit me; that’s why there were no queues at the windows and a little crowd at the machines. OK, I thought to myself, I understand, it’s not your rule, and I’m not going to argue with you about it. I walked to one machine and stood behind a couple of people till it was my turn. It wasn’t that bad, but then I got all exacerbated by the screen menu and the options given; and thinking that I would have to do that 3 times, once for every bill, I decided I’ll take my chances and pay them later from home via phone banking and just walked out unhappy. As I was leaving I looked at the windows and there were zero customers, with the three “employees” just sitting there them doing nothing.

Now how many people, I mean ordinary people, would have six Etisalat bills or more monthly? In other words, customer service here seems now to be only for businesses (and perhaps people with many phone and internet lines); and machine service is for the rest. All I can say is, way to go Etisalat; there is only one place in town that beats you at creating less work for its employees and more for their machines

posted by bandicoot @ 5:35 PM