Its been almost 4 years since I started using !dea, the then spice telecom service. That is when I started using the cell phone too! I was/am still wondering as to why I chose it in the first place and still continuing to use it!!
Reason to get started with it : Spice had a dual sim offer. ie you buy 2 sims with consecutive nos for Rs.500 and the call costs b/w them is 5ps/min + 100 msgs free a day + 69ps to other mobiles. No other service providers ever had this kind of an offer then. I kept one and gave the other to my father. Well, he is also still using the same !!!
Advantages:
1. Spice and no one else provides you an opportunity to memorize the most frequently, less frequently or any no for that matter that you dial. Wondering how this is possible? Well, whenever you try making a call, it never gets connected in the first attempt. You dial, re-dial, type in all the digits once more, keep staring at the screen to see if its connected etc.. In this process you will surely have learnt the nos by-heart!! Esp when the lady on the other end says in a sweet voice - "Please check the number you have dialled"!!
2. You tend to save money on a prepaid recharge. If you are done with the currency and ready for the next re-charge, you goto a nearby service center and either get a top up card or do it online by paying atleast 110 bucks (that is the min recharge amount) only to realize that the server is down for the next 2 days. They even have really polite messages to inform us about unsuccessful recharge. Some of them are -
"Sorry. Recharge not successful. Bye bye". (bye bye is indicative of the fact that the successive recharge attempts will also be unsuccessful)
"Recharge successful. Please dial *456# to check your balance" followed by another message
" The previous transaction has been aborted." (they induce a ray of hope in us by sending a positive stmt followed by a negative one)
"You are not authorized to use this service" (They can't be good always, isnt it?)
Or simply - "Network problem" (simple and sweet)
Regretting of having paid such an amount (during coll days, 110 was really a huge figure) and not even getting it recharged on time, makes you feel pathetic and the next time you make calls, you become conscious enough not to run out of currency fully. The thought of 2 day delay for every recharge will make you do a limited usage of the outgoing calls.
3. Caller tunes that these people offer simply rock. Its 30Rs a month and you can choose from a variety of catogories - English/hindi/all indian regional lang / japnese / chinese / arabic / spanish / danish / latin and what not. Every month end, the service gets deactivated for almost a week which is lucky or me. (My mom calls up often during that week and feels good that I am no longer entertaining the callers at my expenses)On 1st of every month, 30Rs gets deducted promptly and the following week, they give a jukebox offer in which every hour the caller tune is picked randomly from the above mentioned catogories. So only the privileged callers of spice get to hear latin/arabic songs too!!
Oh ya, they sometimes even set the default caller tune to the spice's very own song - "spice hein, toh life hein..." Listen to this song, I'm sure you will be in good health and shape. I was talking about the laughter therapy ;)
4. The special day dedications are astounding. They offer "vande mataram", "mile sur" and such patriotic songs as dedications to our loved ones on a V-day. And "kuch na kaho" "pal pal pal" for the I-day. The teenagers choosing the so-called wrong track, are automatically brought back to the right track, atleast in the former case :P Oh ya, and they charge exuberantly on messages on those days, that will render most of us to keep away from messages. Well, you save here too!!
5. Customer care service is another thing which definitely needs a mention. Call up the toll-free CC no. You will get to listen to soft music for hours together till a CC executive answers your call. They also ask us for feedback for the CC service. (!dea to get better every hour!!). And people are very polite in talking to customers. For an instance, if you shout your lungs out to find an answer/solution to something, they promptly reply -" Sorry. Any of your requests can't be processed. Is there anything else that I can do sir/ma'am??" Of late, they seem to have realized that we "waste" our precious time being adamant to talkto them. Hence, nowthey have a new rule. Now your CC calls also get charged at the rate of 50ps/3min. If one speaks to them on a weekly basis, you will learn to save money and be patient in no time. And ya, few moral lessons too....
Well, I am not at all sarcastic that I categorize all these under "advantages". The biggest advantage for me though is that I have learnt to see things positively. I owe the credit to !dea, which has truly changed my thought process and indirectly to some extent my life!!! Kudos! !DEA, you rock!!
