I am about this close to ditching the crap they call Zain – which I have now only started calling Shain – and throwing my lot with the devil.
What the bloody hell is happening with this company? Since they changed their “brand identity” they’ve gone almost completely down the toilet, at least as far as their wireless Internet service is concerned. It keeps dropping out and has become really unreliable. Their support is no great shakes either, there is no one on support after 10pm and before 8am, the speed crawls rather than walks and the whole of yesterday and this morning I couldn’t get connected at home.
It is almost daily that I call their tech support and tell them to reset my equipment from their end because they just go belly up and I could not get connected. This is stupid, absolutely diabolical and the service is a hell of a lot worse than I anticipated.
Because of the constant frustration with their service, it is really not worth staying with them.
If they think that “rebranding” just means changing their logo and colours and ignoring quality of service, then they might as well call themselves “Shain”, in this case, it is actually much more appropriate.
“shain” is Arabic for bad – against “zain” which means good.
Comments
Well, well done M. Tell it like it is.. Told you Zain was out in a post yesterday. A close friend of a Birdy who would kill me if I told you, told me that with somewhat haste and panic in ”’her”’ voice. and I quote; ‘We are not out, it is only one line down on the Call Centre’. So she swallowed a spider to catch the fly which wriggled and tickled and tickled inside. The Internet being down also threw out the entire Call Centre????? Ugh? Their jobs should be on the line, but it is always Someone Else’s fault. The person/s called ‘Someone Else’ appears a lot! As many blog on here and I agree; it is just a very very few of us who show concern. I really don’t think the masses out there cares at all, which seems to epitomize the level of sophistication and indeed intelligence around us. So few perceive the low standards; the radio, the advertising, the Internet and so on. Or is it just that we can do little about it? Bit like human rights really.
Absolutely. I was calling the “call centre” from around 9pm through to 10.30pm and it would simply not connect, not ring at all actually and sometimes when I do get connected it’s absolute silence on the other end.
Some support this is.
My one and only experience with Zain was the e-Go device (when they were MTC). I got it a year and a half back, and used it very sporadically.
Why, you ask?
Well, for a start, I had a better chance of winning the National Lottery than getting an HSDPA signal in Saar and Budaiya.
Then came their customer service, which was completely non-existent, even at their flagship shop in Seef. Not only did their staff promise to have an engineer call me back (who never did), but they also promised to compensate me for non-usage due to signal drops/no-HSDPA. Well, guess what, nothing materialized.
I paid 15 dinars a month for a rubbish, frustrating service coupled with incompetent customer service. It goes without saying, I reverted back to Batelco’s internet services.
Not that Batelco has amazing customer service either, but between Zain and Batelco, I’ll take the good old Blue B.
I couldn’t agree more!! We have all the same problems, and I was just thinking that we should go back to Batelco.
I had the problem since i came back from work yesterday at around 5.30pm, i restarted the router 20 times thinking that it may be stuck, i tried calling 107 with no luck, it’s either (Busy, or Network Error), finaly when i got through ( Using the mobile support line and not Zain@home ) they told me that they are doing some upgrades, but the least they can do before going to upgrade anything is to inform the customers, or at least send an sms or mention it in the newspapers that they are doing something.
Now im feeling that Zain’s quality of service is down the drain, not even a professional call center they have.
Maybe they can rent Batelco’s call center 🙂
Tell it like it is Mahmood.
No connection again last night.
Maybe it’s time to have to deal with Batelco again and go with begging bowl in hand to see if they’ll install a telephone line to my villa… they refused a year ago!
قالوها منقبل جديمك نديمك Ùˆ لو اغناك يديدك …. Ùˆ بعد يود مينونك لا اييك اللياينمنه 🙂
بس للأس٠لأنما ÙÂيخيار Ùˆ لا ÙÂيقانونيردعهم ما يخلونأØÂد يدش الماركت Ùˆ يناÙÂسهم، Ùˆ اØÂنا المساكينغصب عنأم أبونا نروؠإنطر منهم الخدمات إلينØÂتاجها عسى إنها توÙÂيالغرض Ùˆ لازم نغض النظر Ùˆ نطأطئ الراس Ùˆ نقول لهم مشورينيالأعمام Ùˆ لا تآآخذونى
قهر و الله قهر هالديرة
I don’t have Zain@home.. however, since they introduced this product, my phone has been suffering from a continuous “connection error” syndrom; chances someone would be hooked up with me from the first call is less than 50%..
The same problem stays with my fiance, brothers, and sisters and lasted until today..
When I called 107, they had no clue. I called another time, a good man in Zain suggested that I switch the sittings from 3G to GSM.. Guess what?? It worked great after that..
So.. My analysis to the core of de problem is that our good Zain didn’t do their homework before pushing out a new product; that consumed so much of the network and affected other service lines…
What really frustrates me is that if you ask them about it, they are like: “ooh really? no there is not problm, may be this may be that!!”
Enough with this non-sense. Since one week my Zain@home started giving download speed tht reminded me the 56K modem years. Its seems my WIMAX box does not recieve signals properly should be re-alinged cuz i got ping results between 350 – 400 ms. And for thir re-alingment I got more than 20 cases frm them but stil no technician or technical department called. And one thing tht I dont understand is how can my WIMAX box not recieve signals properly when their tower is installed just on top of the opposite building facing my house
Zain did not get any reception while I was out of the country, while Batelco had a full signal in the same area. I experimented this with different phones, all to get the same end result. They also keep cutting my phone line off, and their customer service is now rubbish! They were fine when they were MTC.
I had a very interesting chat with Batelco. They are winning customers back and were trying to offer special deals for old customers. Of course they told me this was not permitted by the licensing Authority so we had to approach this from another angle.
Forget price, charges and other things normally comprehended by the Arab world and approach telcoms from a European point of view. Compete in things which cannot be valued by our cultural blindfold – service and quality and art!!
If Batelco smiled more, used friendly customer service, told the truth about system faults and went the extra mile to ensure customers were happy they would recover. If they made themselves more accessable, with real people on the end of the phone, cleaned up their image they would win!!
My company is going to give Batleco another try, we have insisted upon customer service, we don’t have to pay our bills unless we are happy with the service and we want them to give us solutions to our business needs. We will pay more if necessary – price doesn’t really matter when it is relaiblity and service you want.
Somewhere down the line you get the feeling our religious beliefs have been responsible for the failure of the telcom industry in Bahrain. Try and explain that to our fellow Arabs!!
We all saw this coming Mahmood. Back to good old ADSL perhaps? With LLU in the pipeline, albeit a ‘Bahraini version’ of it, do you think there’s light at the end of the tunnel?
Obviously not.
Once again, tonight the Internet – c/o Messrs Zain & Co – is patchy at best, totally buggered is a polite way to put it.
Sunday. I can’t wait for Sunday.
Zain Wajd Zain, all I’m going to say is HOW LAME IS THE NAME?
I come to Bahrain After a year and so of leaving my lovely little island, I missed the country too much all I wanted to do after a year and so was to go and get some siraj malghoom from Adliya but I had to turn my phone on I was looking for mtc in the Airport and a guy kept telling me it is Zain!
What is Zain? I kept on asking him, tired after traveling for a long time and then he repeats Zain, wouldn’t drive you crazy?
I WILL TELL U MY LITTLE STORY WITH ZAIN. WHEN IT FIRST STARTED AS MTC, I THOUGHT THAT I SHOULD GET AN ELEGANT LOOKING NUMBER AND JUST BE DIFFERENT SO I SHIFTED FROM BATELCO TO MTC. MY BILL INCREASED AND WHENEVER I TRAVEL I HAVE TO TAKE A BATECLO CHIP WITH ME INCASE ZAIN’S CHIP DOES NOT WORK, AND TRUST ME, IT DIDN’T WORK IN ONE COUNTRY!!!!!
WHEN THEY STARTED ZAIN @ HOME, I TOLD MYSELF, LET ME GIVE THEM ANOTHER CHANCE…. UNFORTUNATELY, I WISH I DIDN’T BECAUSE THE CONNECTION WAS SO BAD….. I KEPT COMPLAINING BUT AS MOST OF YOU KNOW, THINGS DO NOT SEEM TO BE GETTING ANY BETTER.
I WISH THAT ANY PERSON INCHARGE OF THE PR AT THIS COMPANY WOULD JOIN OUR DISCUSSION AND ENLIGHTEN US!!!!!!!!!!!
ha! They’re an ISP, but their staff arent tech/web savvy in the slightest.
Well for me I’m staying with Zain and I’m happy!
The only problem with Zain is their DNS server! Treat it and you will not get any problem browsing the net!
Since the 1st day I joined Zain I noticed how slow thier DNS and as soon as possible I manually configured my network card with new DNS settings and since then I never called them ever! (2 months now!!!)
If someone interested these are some of great DNS servers:
205.234.170.215
205.234.170.217
or use opendns servers (http://www.opendns.com/)
Good Luck!
I love my country, Bahrain and Batelco represent Bahrain which is why I will be with Batelco forever. At least, when ever I pay a bill, I feel that a Bahraini family, kids and elders are being well fed. I feel that I done a great thing to my own country and society. I love you Batelco, I love you Bahrain 🙂
Actually Abeer, cut that flowery image of Batelco. They might be good, they might be reliable, but paying your bills ensures that the kangaroos running the company will get “well” fed. The Bahrainis will just get fed. Life is not all perfect you know. In the end, all telecoms companies are thieves whether you like it or not. And judging by the way your approach is talking about Batelco being Bahraini bla bla bla indicates that you are either a member of staff there or one of their relatives. It doesn’t matter to me. What I am saying is that we as consumers go for the best product package ie pricing, after sales service and continuity. In the Middle East, all telecoms companies rip you off one way or another trust me.
We all love Bahrain but when you see this “Bahraini” company firing Bahraini staff. Doesn’t sound so Bahraini does it?
Stranded – one COULD argue Batelco’s inability to fire people is one if its biggest challenges. Good companies incentivize good employees and invite bad employees to leave. If you can’t fire bad apples or redundant positions then you have a major problem**. And whether they are Bahraini or not is by the by. Though I do agree their prices are a rip-off.
My point which I have made time and time again on similar threads is that Batelco came from a ministry mentality and bloated workforce (and yes tons of cash). Shain, No-Speed, and Won’t-Connect all had the advantages of starting fresh. And after years of competition they still haven’t managed to come up with good service.
** I should stress this is a general point and not about the particular Batelco situation.
Loki, I do agree with you, if a company can’t get rid of excess baggage and it should and the labor law actually mentions that poor performers can be terminated, then that company does have a problem. I completely agree with you and no argument there.
What I was saying above and didn’t want to give it away straight away was due to me knowing a lot of ambitious and good friends who left the company because it wasn’t appreciating them despite it said it promotes creativity etc etc…
These people now left to other companies and wouldn’t have done so if it had appreciated their efforts. Meanwhile other people who don’t perform got promotions and great salary increases which were even exceeding the increment guidlines as per their internal policies. Anyways a business owner can decide how to reward their employees, the point was is that those appreciations went to people who don’t deserve it and the result was that a lot of good people left. And nothing against those who were gonna get fired then returned to work later, but some of them were actually excess baggage in terms of poor performance.
Sorry I made it long but was trying to clear a few things. Also the point was that some people say Batelco is national bla bla bla, all that is nice but if I am not getting my money’s worth then there is no point in staying with ANY merchant of ANY specialty if their service is bad and am not getting my value for money. It’s all about the customer experience and not the country of origin. Gulf Air is another perfect example of a national company yet they treat people like it’s the people who are begging them for the service. That’s why unless I don’t have any other alternatives, I never use them.
Totally agree with all of that. Alas, I also know of many talented people that left Batelco for the reasons you highlighted.
Also agree about Gulf Air. I generally avoid them where possible!
I guess my point was just at being amazed at the fact that Batelco’s service, as mediocre as it is, is still better than the competition. Its a sad state of affairs all round.
…. Anyone with a couple of million to spare interested in starting a new ISP?
omg, tell me about it!
their internet has been reaaalllly slow lately! It was down for like 10 hours yesterday. it was because they were “fixing their network” or whatever. my theshold hasnt come back in a month! ive been living on 128 kb for a month no.
They didnt send the phone bills for the first 5 months of our subscription. Then they dropped us one big bill and told us that theyd disconnect it if we didnt pay it the same day.
VERY crappy service too! i hate the song they play while you wait, it just repeats and repeats, makes you go crazy.
We need proof! I was told tonight by a featherless birdy that there is at least one voyeur from Zain(and quite a responsible one) reading this blog. The source is also a Zain disciple with ears on high heads. The problems they know, the fix not so sure about. Where is my WIMAX??