PHONE BANKING... INR 50

I received a message from a Bank which said “From 1^st October 2013, calls at phone banking services on IVR will be free. Agent handled calls up to 2 per month are free. 3^rd call onwards there will be a charge of INR 50 per call. For more details visit www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com”.

I happen to hold a credit card of this well known international bank that sent me the message and happened to recall an incident that happened with me a month back. I had realized that I had accumulated some reward points on the credit card and wanted to redeem it. I visited the Bank’s website and selected the reward and tried to redeem it online. I was asked to verify some details like DOB and mobile number. When I entered the mobile number I was told that it does not match with the one in their records and showed me 4 digits of a number that I had discontinued when I moved from Bangalore to Mumbai 6 years back. I had also made it a point to call the Bank and inform them my new address and telephone no. I know they have my current details as I happen to get alerts and updates on my new mobile number.

I called up the call centre to inform them about the issue. After spending about 5 minutes with the IVR, I managed to get a phone banking executive who asked me for my mobile number so that he could verify it. After listening to me he said “YOU ARE MISTAKEN SIR, WE HAVE THE CORRECT NUMBER IN OUR RECORDS”. I then explained to him how I was trying to redeem my reward points online and the mobile number there was not matching my current mobile number. The phone banking executive then says “OK, I GET IT NOW. YOUR NEW DETAILS HAVE NOT BEEN UPDATED IN OUR ONLINE DATEBASE”. The executive then put me on hold so that he could verify the records and the call got disconnected before he could come back on the line and confirm that it has been changed. Since I had already spent 15 minutes I did not bother calling again.

The point I want to make here is, if the Bank is charging me INR 50 per call to speak to a phone banking officer, shouldn’t they be paying me INR 50 as I had to speak to a phone banking officer because the Bank failed to update my records online (for the last 6 years). Shouldn’t they also pay me another INR 50 because the line was disconnected and now I have to make a second call and spend another 15 minutes explaining the same story to another phone banking officer?

Dear Bank, please realize that the phone banker is a services you have given me because you want my money. I do not wake up in the morning and say “today I will speak to a phone banker”. In fact like me most people hate calling up customer service as they first have to go through IVR and then speak to an agent without any assurance of the issue getting resolved. So please think again, is PHONE BANKING AT INR 50 really worth it.

Written by Naveen Nandan

Math Tales

Charlie Eppes is a mathematical genius who helps the FBI solves crimes using data and mathematics. Charlie Eppes is a character from the American television series NUMB3RS. I have been watching it for a few weeks and in every episode of the series Charlie’s mathematical theories/ formulas helps in solving a crime by finding a target or finding a victim or something else.

Mathematics has been the nightmare of many during their school/ college days. Given a choice I wouldn't have wanted to do anything with it. What Charlie did using maths in the series looked interesting to me which got me wondering why was it that I hated maths so much or even the thought of it. I had a few theories of my own and wanted to test it. I tried doing a small survey among a few friends to figure out what their favourite subject in school was. Keeping the languages aside a majority said History (which happened to be my favourite too). There were people who liked maths and physics but history was the clear leader… why?

History told us stories about nations, empires, warriors, great leaders, events and so on. The stories were easier to remember and relate to. You had a story/ stories against a name like Indus Valley Civilization, Maurya Empire, Maratha Empire, Chandragupta Maurya, Chattrapati Shivaji, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. These are some of the names or stories you never forget. Mathematics was all about a, b, x, y, sin, cos, tan, derivatives and so on which I could never relate to. Nobody created a story or event around any of these characters and hence it created more complications for me.

I like it when the FBI uses mathematics to solve crime. Maybe if maths was taught by explaining what one could achieve instead of just finding x and y it might have become slightly more interesting (at least for me). Think about it maths explained using stories… I might finally figure out what x or y could do. Those who have kids who hate mathematics might try explaining to them how we use math every day to predict weather, to tell time, to handle money, win a lottery or even solve crime. As Charlie Eppes explains in the series “Math is more than formulas or equations, it’s logic, it’s rationality, it’s using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know”. 

Written by Naveen Nandan