One of the common observation one can make is whenever a government company goes for some tech implementation for improving their process, the outcome is generally a slow working or unusable system for the customer. But when I did my first LPG refill booking through HP Anytime which is an IVRS based refill booking system I was really surprised with the outcome.
HP Anytime claims that it sends 3 SMS alerts to customers on the status of refill supplies:
- Refill booking number and date of pending orders
- Cash memo number & date
- Delivery confirmation of refills.
Since I wanted to know the likely day when the refill was to be delivered I decided to try the IVRS and called the Karnataka number which is 99640 23456. I was expecting it to be a very long process, but it turned out to be a very short one with the following options:
- English/Kannada
- Input Phone number of the dealer, once input the dealer name was announced
- Input consumer number
- Provided with the booking number and the date till which the pending refill booking were cleared by the dealer.
- The last step of an optional one to link the mobile number with the consumer number
Immediately after I got off the IVRS, I got the first SMS containing my consumer number and booking number. Well, that was a good start.
Days went by and a good ten days later around 6pm I got the second of the three SMS’s containing the cash memo number and date and it told that the delivery will be done in the next 48 hours. Wow that is good to know since I was expecting it to take around 15 days and had not kept the money ready for it.
10am the next day (Sunday), the delivery man was at my door step for delivery. This has worked well for me till now so I waited for the last promised SMS, and to the cue the very next day I receive a SMS telling that the delivery happened the previous day and if not received the refill I should call the number provided.
Good Job from HP everything from booking till the final SMS of delivery was spot on. HP also provides a ‘Preferred Time Delivery’ option which is the next item on my radar.