Earlier I wrote about dishonesty as a business model: dark patterns, hidden fees, and pricing tricks that quietly erode trust. This is the less flashy cousin of that problem: companies that simply don’t care whether they deliver what you paid for.
Collecting money is instant
In 2025 I signed up for JioAirFiber. The installation turned out to be impossible because of the provider’s own limitations, so I asked for a refund of ₹2,221.46.
What followed was a frustrating loop. Escalations, service requests, robotic responses, and zero ownership. After 45 days nothing had moved, and I was told it would take another 21. I filed complaints on the consumer helpline. One was closed without a resolution. The other sat pending without progress.
More than a year later, I still haven’t received that refund.
What struck me was the asymmetry. When a company wants your money, everything works instantly: multiple payment options, links, confirmations in seconds. When it fails to deliver, the customer is left chasing shadows.
And then I went back
In 2026 my Airtel broadband started dropping repeatedly, so I decided to switch. The lack of alternatives pushed me back to Jio, despite everything.
Now I’m chasing them again, this time just to get the installation done. The sales representative stopped taking calls. Customer support can only apologize, raise another request, and make assurances they have no power to keep.
It’s not the people on the phone
I genuinely feel for the people in those call centers. Imagine spending the prime years of your career apologizing to angry customers, all day, for problems you didn’t create and have no authority to fix.
The problem isn’t one bad representative. It’s the system. Somebody should be looking at the data and asking:
- Why do customers call repeatedly about the same issue?
- Why are installations promised and not completed?
- Why can’t frontline teams take ownership?
- Why are there no consequences when commitments are missed?
- Why are the same failures allowed to repeat at scale?
Those are all answerable questions. When nobody asks them, that’s a decision.
The boring basics matter
We talk a lot about becoming one of the world’s largest economies. That ambition has to show up in the boring basics too: reliable infrastructure, accountability, service quality, and respect for a customer’s time.
You can build world-class apps and payment systems. But if basic execution stays broken, sustaining that progress gets much harder.
For founders, there’s a simpler lesson. Customer service isn’t a department you staff. It’s a choice you make about what your company is willing to be accountable for. The customers who suffered through someone else’s broken system are the easiest ones to win, if you actually show up for them.