Thursday, November 19, 2015

A rendezvous with a Gmail helpline executive

A fortnight ago my gmail account went out of my reach. It's been ten years since I'm using it, and there have been very few instances when I might have ever changed my password. I know that is suicidal, but since the past seven years I have got used to the idea of staying logged in through my phone. I take the pains to login through the computer very rarely, which is why staying logged in through phone had become a habit.
Last fortnight was a different ball game. I opened my computer and frantically typed in my login id and password, to be denied access. Hell broke loose thereafter, since I had to send an urgent email. I tried churning my memory to remember my alternative email id's password, since I had entered another person's mobile number as the phone recovery option. This was to avoid any instances of my mobile number being sold to pesky advertisers. That precaution backfired and I felt as helpless as a child who had lost her way back home. 
This is when I happened to click on some random options in an agitated attempt to somehow recover my gmail email, which turned out to be blessing in disguise. Somehow a message was sent to the gmail helpline and I got immediately connected. 
An american lady politely offered help after greeting me. There weren't too many unsolicited apologies, much like our indian customer care or helpline numbers retort to. She carefully guided me through the process of recovering my email, by asking for the last alternate email address I remembered. I informed her that the phone number I had mentioned on the recovery page had been wrongly entered. She assured me of all possible help and after about five minutes of patiently listening to her sermons of handling our email accounts, a solution came my way. She told me that the  recovery team would forward an email to me with a link to reset the password. She also directed me to carefully fill the recovery page again with my correct mobile number.
For the tough lessons, that this episode of confusion had taught me, I filled in the recovery page with all the necessary details and finally caught hold of my beloved email account.


It was a pleasing experience to talk to this american lady sitting in some part of the US of A, who for the starters pronounced my name correctly and was willing to provide quick solutions to a problem that had happened because of my fearful carelessness.
Unlike our desi customer care executives, who do not have an explanation for the issues we face with the services they offer, this was a blessing in disguise. This call was not charged and neither did I have to put up with irksome executives who waste our time and money by offering irritating apologies with no solutions in hand.
Maybe it's high time that the new age e-commerce people in india take a cue from the gmail helpline, by training their customer care executives  to be patient and friendly with a will to dispose the right information to the harried customer. Also, paid customer care and helpline numbers is an added burden that a customer shouldn't be asked to bear. 
It's a long way before we can have access to efficient customer care services. Until then, this rendezvous with a gmail helpline executive will be a refreshing gratifying memory in mind.

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