Mobilink to Charge Rs. 2 for Every Helpline Call

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Mobilink has announced that every call made to its helpline will be charged at Rs. 2 plus tax (Rs. 2.42 including taxes) from November 15th, 2010.

It merits mentioning here that Mobilink had introduced this idea of charging helpline calls back in August 2008, which was then followed by all other cellular companies. You may know that Pakistan is the only country in the world where helpline calls are being charged.

Mobilink had then imposed 50 paisas on every helpline call and said that these charges are imposed to improve quality of customer support.

We are not going to comment on how much the quality service quality has improved after the imposition of service charges, instead we would recommend you to read this guide if you want to decrease wait time during helpline calls.

Expect other operators to follow this, if PTA, the regulator, remains quite.

Following ad appeared in today’s papers:

Mobilink_Helpline_Calls

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • Cheeni Jo Mehangi ho gai hai… staff ki TEA ka bhi to bandobast karna hai na… samjha karo dosto.

    • the funny thing is, they will never show this in an ad, and even issued the announcement in some inside pages of a newspaper so minimum ppl see it(even publishing in newspaper just so they’re legally safe).

      now other companies will follow.
      this kind of trend in the cellular segment is alerting.

      good riddance i mnp’ed from mobilink to ufone a while back. although now its just like choosing the lesser of the 4,5 evils.

  • hahaha thats funny to read “Exceptional care” lagta hai keh taunt ker rhay hain .. :)

    han bahi Shugar Rs.125/- jo ho gye hai aur bhai aur jo kerna hai ker lo

    jub Rs2/- her month per unit on electricity pay increase hon gay.. aur light phir ni aye ge ..

    [Comment Edited]

  • Bro!! it’s per call charge, I think all others should charge ony at per call and not per minute…

    • everyone is charging per call dear… for example warid charge 50 paisa + tax per call for 321 and 50 paisa + tax for agent option.

  • shame on mobilink, poor service and poor quality, blunders after blunders, who says apna hai,, very poor management, instead of improving they are moke much worst, so every1 can understand..they are full of fools and empty mind, nothing in mind, everything on tongue…shame mobilink

  • Yar customer ko free calls day ker kamaie bhi tu kerni hai kahin say . . . I am happy with this decision. . . All Operators should start this even on Post-Paid as well. . . But ab employees ki salary bhi increase kerni chaheay in ko.

  • charges are ok . we neeed quality . our mind are not made up for free things .whatever it b

  • I think the writer needs to get some facts right before posting such articles. Helplines in various countries are charged. GSM Contact Center helplines are charged in Bangladesh on a per minute basis!!

  • all other operators will follow so stop your complaining – it is the new reality, how many of you ring the call center for user error type of issues.

    you should be charged for your time wasting

    • you are too illogicial. maybe you were the one who imposed these charges.

      support and ongoing customer satisfaction comes at a cost which is dubbed as operational expenses.

      who advised these companies to fight on price to get so poor that they start collecting charity for their expenses?

  • yaro ufone walo nay in ki MAT mar d ha customers chor rahy ha mobilink tu bs yah ab asa kar k apna loss pura kar rahy han

  • I don’t see any problem with these charges. It will shed overload of unnecessary customer calls to helplines. Many people calls helpline just because it is free and then disturbs call center representatives.

    Secondly, please correct your information…Helpline is not free all over world. There are many companies who charges per minute to avoid unnecessary calls. Just visit Middle East and you will find many telecom companies are charging.

    Basic objective of these charges are not to earn more and more, rather to avoid unnecessary calls. I swear by Allah, that many people I personally knows who calls without reason to call centers. In return, companies were expanding their call centers employees and increasing cost of helplines. Now companies can handle real problems with minimum cost.

    Also please understand that Pakistan telecom sector call charges comes in the least charges in the world. Day by day dollar is going up but calls in Pakistan are going down.

    You can say that whole world has almost adopted UMTS (3G) for broadband but in Pakistan still people are waiting for that day when they can use their highly expensive phones in proper way. GPRS/EGDE has been obselete now due to very low speed. Companies should work on borad band side to give optimum services to consumers and increase their return on investment.

    Regards,

    • “Many people calls helpline just because it is free and then disturbs call center representatives”

      Who said they were previously free?

      • Yeah.. actually all this while I thought prepaid customers were charged by all cellular service providers for calling their helpline

    • actually the problem is with lake of call center agents due to recent downsizing… so that now they can’t offer to attend most of the customer calls so that they have increased the charges up to 2Rs+Tax
      but in addition to this Mobilink should introduce some new number for their customer care coz most of the time customers need to call 111 for some services adjacent to 111

      Pakistan khappay
      Cellular Networks khappay :P

  • Dear Aamir,

    Thankyou for highlighting the informatiion, it is very strage that Mobilink has increaed the helpline charges again.

    Another strange thing is that whenever I dial helpline from my Indigo, I was introduced to other promotional prepaid packages.

    The Indigo customers also treated like prepaid customers.

    • According to Mobilink’s public notice (ad), they are charging extra to continue providing exceptional services.

      Now this is what they are not doing, for instance, in your case – you hear prepaid promotions. One may say that this is deliberate as Mobilink wants its postpaid customers to come back on prepaid, which would be absurd.

      Cellular companies, time has come now, should make their call centers intelligent. As Saleem Khan mentioned above, there are ppl who call helplines just to kill their time. I am wondering, how and why it is so difficult to flag such customers to put them on lower priority.

      Instead of putting the burden on whole lot, they must introduce innovative ways to provide REAL exceptional services to the end user.

      Its not a unknown fact that almost every caller waits for 10 odd mins before getting through to the CSR – this is not exceptional by any definitional.

      As saturation is nearing (or has somewhat reached), customer support will become the top seller for any cellular service.

      Unless, all companies combine to cartel and provide ordinary services with services(less) charges on customers.

      On an additional note: Cellular companies had imposed 5 percent service charges on all card loads. They imposed these charges as a team and no-one could do a thing against it.

      Alarm is that this has happened before, and this can/will happen again.

      PTA: Its time for another treat from celcos!

      • Thank dear. Just to update you that I was listening one news about German Telecom. The German Government is bring law that will compel all telecom and call centers to pay back some amount of call cost back to customers because companies are doing their marketing during call hold, call forwarding, call waiting etc etc.

        We often criticize Europe and America but it is reality that all those countries are taking care of their citizen and mostly address their problems in few months. In Pakistan, there is no concept of real customer services. Either consumer exploit any offer or company do insane with consumers. By God, Pakistan is best market for investors because Government Institutions takes bribes and closes their eyes…Then COMPANIES DO RAPE OF PAKISTANIS.

        Brothers no body is there to listen your shear cries and pains. This is a country where you have to do all yourself—from Education to Job, Building home to securing it. So crying for high prices etc has no sense in Pakistan. After all you all are living good life and no body is willing to get united against all these evils.

        Unless we are willing to change our practices, no body will change system.

      • @Admin, there is no way to filter out the genuine customer who calls helpline for valid reason and set the dumbs time wasters on low priority….it is a good step to impose more charges so that the number of those dumbs caller would reduce…If u want to know the reason why calls began to be charged cal edhi helpline or 1122 and ask them what they have to hear all day…ppl hv made the companies to do such things…

          • priority is set on bais of revenue generated by customer….and by the way thier is no other way to know which customer is calling for genuine reason…so cant filter the dumbs…many ppl cl hlp line ONLY to irritate female representatives…sm dun hv any thing to do they juz diAl hlp line…ppl hv made telcoS to do so…in the past 5 years in pakistan ever thing has gone expensive except the call and sms rates which has decreaded day by day…WE ARE A NATION WHO ONLY EXCEL IN CRITICISM…

          • pitiful indeed :S lal just make a database give each customer a rating for 1 to 5 stars hire a team for listening to each conversation and rating them listen to one’s with higher ratings first its that simple =)

              • Why to give such thing in CSR hands…when human involvement comes in judgement then risk of biased decision comes too. Like many companies, telecom companies can put analytical kind of software that will judge itself number of calls per customer per week and what kind of info he is asking for. This will work better than allowing CSRs to decide. If you will give it in CSR hands, then their wish is to rate every body as ‘a bad caller’. :)

                Believe in Quality Assurance, not in Quality Control.

                • Google Analytics is one example. Pandora Music Application is an other example. So analytical softwares can do this job more efficiently and effectively.

              • i think u dun hv any idea hw cal cntrs work…beter take a day out a cl cntr u wud get to know rather it posible to make database in a way u r asking or not…person managing a cl cntr knows it beter…any ways u cn say wat u want…no offence…aftr all u r da admin…

              • exactly why saleem khan said so :S eg if the caller and csr have an argument over something . the csr would rate the caller 0 :S but an independent team would rate him according to his argument :S

    • Treated like prepaid customers?

      Does it mean Postpaid should be treated more respectfully than prepaid because prepaid pay in advance and postpaid pay after a month ?

      • Never said that.
        But Postpaid customers are like priority customers.
        Just like when you open up a bank a/c say for instance with Standard Chartered.
        If you are their Priority customer (meaning high investment in a/c)
        then you are treated differently from other NORMAL customers.

        It’s just that you have extra privileges of being a priority customer simply because of a fact that MORE MONEY is involved.

        And to be fair, who says prepaid customers are the only customers who pay in advance?
        Postpaid customers deposit a security when purchasing a new sim off the counter.

        • @admin.
          should have posted my second comment which had an addition to what I had to say at the bottom.

      • the difference between pre-paid and postpaid is that most of the premium and corporate users have post paid with their high credit rating and usage…
        every company prefer it’s corporate and premium clients instead regular one’s

  • Aik din yeh bhi aana hay jab awam nay Rs100 ka card load karnay hay aur sirf 25 rupaye top up honay hein after all tax deductions..

    ALLAH reham karay

  • Yup but not in Mobilink . . . Aur yar helpline per call k tu Per Minute k hisaab say charges honay chaheay. Mostly customers call for just our time wasting. They ask info from us but again reply their answer by themself. . . It’s good step. . . Keep it Up Mobilink. . . Apnay country mein inflation rate daikha hai kya. . . It’s justified Thumbs Up for Mobilink.

    • Why don’t just stop Customer Support and write “No Customer Support” then ? Will help many people in Customer Support find better jobs and help an operator earning billions to earn a little more.

  • No doubt that is for reducing the number of calls to help line and then reducing number of employees in call center and eventually “exceptional” customer service remains the same while reducing the cost.

  • HAHA, looks like a dash for a gasp of last breath by mobilink, how is this logical, god knows.
    Mobilink should stop calling its help line, a help line, becuse , help is suppose to be some what free, i understand that help lines are not free all over the world, but they dont rip u off, and even after charging so much they dont make you wait for 20 minutes, i had to wait that long just to connect to the operator.
    unnecessary calling is a lame excuse of saying that we are going to slit your throat if u like it or not.

    I think mobilink has been and always will be confused, i think they are now going to go back to there previous slogan of, Rates our quality pay no samjhota, YES we will charge U high rates on everything and give U crapy quality, 2 rupees mein to bhai, Ufone walay muft calls datay hain, kidhar baitha howa ho….I think now after this crimnal act by mobilink, iam finaly going to opt out of this stinking network, either to telenor or Ufone. Where they atleast charge U and give u something back as well.

    people working for pricing at mobilink should be fired along with there whole marketing team as well……..

  • For those who think that this happens only in Pakistan:

    In every country and with every operator there are customers who call with not so good intentions like killing their time, have fun etc.

    So this excuse that as people call Customer Support for fun and so they should charge calls on helpline is bullshit.

    They already charge 5% for what ? If someone in Mobilink who thinks he/she is smart enough coming with such an idea to put financial load of retaining Customer Support on Customer is actually damaging company in long term. I pay a huge bill every month, even in my prepaid numbers but I won’t be willing to pay for something that is prerequisite of a telecom service.

    I will give this money in flood relief than to Mobilink, 2nd Mobilink should now start a 0900 number that can be called from any operator.

  • i am there client and using there product and they are going to charge me if i need help or having problem using there product due to there own fault..

    go to hell mobilink… 2moro i will port to some other network… i understand other network may also do same but i will never forget YOU STARTED THIS!

  • Hey i am using their postpaid number. This increase is only on Jazz customers not for indigo customers. Helpline charges for postpaid are not increased. :D

  • Bheeekaariii-nesss – By MobiLink =)

    2 rs kAy Mun WalAy

    Khushra NetWork ;-)

    P.s : Gardarii Err i mean Zardarii Ki Rooh Mobilink KhusrOn Main Transfer Ho gaye Hai :D :D

    Mobilink KhAppAy ( KhApna In PunjAbi =P)

  • This is wierd Step by Mobilink and other etworks will blindly follow this trend like they did few years back. I think Mobilink should shut down its operations if it is facing financial contraints instead of making telecom sector of Pakistan expensive.

  • O yaaron charge karne do, shayed hum franchisees per burden kam ho jaye, otherwise they will kill us by cutting our retention commission and recover their amount. “These are words from a senior RSM of Mobilink”.

  • yar jazz ki sim h 0300 wali or usme 1818 se sms ata h or sara balanes khatam plz hellp karo 111 pe call ki to wo kehte hin k ye ofar hamre nahi min kia karon plz batao


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