Quality of customer care at the phone shops still wanting

Today I walked into Zain Koinange and to have the dashboard software for my Huawei E220 Modem replaced. I found a very disturbing scenario in the shops. First the lady I met there who I was reffered to by a Zain employee and was said to be the pro, didnt have much info on how to operate the modem. I wanted to flash the modem so that I can have it work with Ubuntu 9.10.

I was taken round round and round until I got tired. I called the friend working with Zain for help and he called the Koinange shop manager whom he was actually telling how things should be working with the modem. Now the shocker came, I had to get a letter from the Zain shop manager to take the letter to Huawei offices on Mombasa road for it to be sorted out. That was funny. Its like telling me that if I buy an HP computer from Ebrahims or Avenue computers then when I have problems with the computer then Avenue or Ebrahims will have to write to me a letter to take to HP offices for sorting out?

[/caption]Why dont Zain just take the Modem, sort it out with Huawei then I come pick it from Zain? If Zain wanted me to deal with Huawei, they should have as well told me to to go to buy the modem from Huawei and then not have me go through all that hassle. Why brand the modem Zain if I will be dealing with Huawei when I have a problem with the Modem?

Zain branded E220 ModemI grew impatient and thats when they offered to do me a favour, take for me the modem to Huawei and sort it out. So I will be checking with Zain after one week. Thats where Zain is laggin behind in the game. First it was teh case of them calling for you the guards to serve you if you didnt know which queue to take. We complained and they stopped. Now its simply sabotaging the client.

We hope that they will realise that customer care is a very important aspect and the fact that I have already paid you the money doesnt mean the relationship ends. I am still using the modem and I can as well take one from the competition.

I bought the new Zain Modem, Huawei E1550. Its a good Modem. I very big improvement from the E160 in design and even dashboard and firmware. It connects without problems with Ubuntu, you dont have to enter the many commands.

Safaricom and Orange also still suffers from cases where shop and customer care personell have no clue what they are selling and if they have then its not enough knowledge to convince. They also lack technical support for after sales service.