I have a real problem trying to use local products. No matter how hard I try to choose Kosovo-made options on principle, I keep ending up disappointed by the actual service or product. This time it’s worth explaining exactly why it’s so exhausting to rely on a local provider, whether that’s internet, mobile, or cable TV.
If your mobile number is with Vala, Kosovo’s own carrier, you’ll eventually run into a customer service number problem. After real effort, I found that “555” is supposedly the only official line for Kosovo Telecom. Customer care there has only three to five people answering calls. Reaching an operator at all is the real obstacle: Vala’s own system gives you no way to hold if the lines are busy, it just drops the call outright. I personally tried calling back up to 22 times without success, gave up and tried again later, or went to the nearest post office (I won’t get into the reasoning for that here). When you do finally reach someone, the problem shifts: they only seem to know about five common issues by heart and aren’t briefed on everything tied to business packages, internet packages, cable TV packages, or bundles, so they often redirect you to yet another number, promising that one is the right fit for your specific service. After two or three of those calls looping you around, if you’re lucky, someone actually helps.
Customer care is fundamental for a company, especially one that’s a full corporation with every resource available to be the best option in our market.
Separately, there’s the marketing: a New Year’s campaign, “Send SMS with Vala” (no offer specified at all). I won’t get into every detail, but I do want to flag one SMS-ad I got, this time from Kosovo Telecom directly: call 9099 and see what happens… you can’t get through, even though they could have simply included a link, telekomi.net/oferta, which would have been far easier and let people actually see the details and offers on their own.
Whatever the case, these are obstacles the local providers themselves are creating that push people away from using them. Yet I’ll keep insisting on using them anyway.
Write a comment