Dialog billing has lot of errors. I raised few last week and so far pending a reply.

One issue was their addition was wrong and the CC reply was they has “forgotten” to include the News alert rental, but the total is reflecting that. Well if figures don’t add up, that is some thing wrong.

Second issue was related to the magazine you are working with. It says it costs only .50 cents per sms. But I have been charged 2.00 Rupees. They gave me a reference number but no reply from them yet.

Thirdly in one of my dialog TV bills, there was nothing due and no payment was made for the previous month. But I had paid the monthly bill.

And the on-line bill is “not available” or “processing” most of the time (even yesterday) and the figures are incorrect. Suddenly, they “process” the bill and all the figures change to correct value (this happened last month).

When billing cycle changes to the next month, there is a delay of about 6-7 days to get up to date information.

In the detail bill, for sms it is the useless message centre number for all the sms. I don’t know why they cannot put the number to which sms was sent. Well mobitel used to do it in the past (still they may be doing it, but I dont get a detailed bill).

Simply there are lot of issues and I don’t know why it is taking such a long time to get it right.

Agree with Prasanna. Dialog are a great company and I wouldn’t change, but the billing could be so much better.

The bill totals are sometimes out by a cent or two. Okay, it’s not much, but if the software can’t add properly, it doesn’t inspire confidence.

The online billing could and should be so much better. It should be live and up-to-this-second, which it wasn’t last time I checked (which admittedly was about six months back). And it should be in a printable format, it displayed in this awful pop-up window. Dialog should encourage customers to move from paper bills to e-bills, it’s easier, cooler and more environmentally friendly. Allowing companies to export the data into Excel (in a standardised format) would also allow us to manage our corporate lines more effectively – we can analyse who is calling where and for how much etc. I can’t be typing that shit out from a paper bill…

One number on my company’s package was changed to a different tariff plan mysteriously, and we only picked up the anomaly about four months later – he had been billed at high call rates and not the low rates we are promised on our corporate plan. We went through it thoroughly (on our time and expense) and submitted the problem to Dialog, they refunded the amount in full. But it was annoying to have to do the legwork to fix what was Dialog’s error.

I would also like to see the duration of a call in minutes (and seconds ideally) rather than “units”. I know “units” represent minutes, but then say minutes. Also include a rate column, so we can see the rate each call is charged at – yes we can calculate it by dividing the total by the units, but I wanna see the rate! :) Makes life easier when I have to go through the twenty bills we get each month.

Oh, while I’m ranting, I’d also like to see a summary bill outlining the overall totals on my corporate package, maybe some charts to show which bills were high, maybe some comparisons with previous bills, totals for the year-to-date etc. Banks give us stuff like this, to aid our MIS, why not our mobile suppliers too? The work is still having to be done by us at our end – but it would be truly great if it could be done at Dialog’s end.

I agree with the SMS billing too. Are things so backwards that Dialog can’t show who SMSs were sent to? Receiving six pages of my bill listing out the SMS centre number repeatedly is not only a waste of paper, it’s a waste of time for Dialog, and for me.

I would suggest Dialog pick some random bills each month and go through them with a fine toothcomb to see if everything is working properly. And have a feedback system where I can submit my complaints to a more public forum, as opposed to directly talking to my Dialog rep. If my rep is useless (he isn’t) then how do I know my concerns will be heard by management and dealt with?

Star Points – these are confusing and I have no idea how they work. I think you need to better educate your corporate subscribers on this.

I have brought these issues up a few times with the guy handling my company’s corporate package, but another problem is that the staff turnover in that department is very high. We get a new Dialog rep about once every four months. Annoying, but what are you gonna do.

I like Dialog overall and their intentions are very good, problems are fixed rapidly and the people are very very competent. For me, the things I’ve written above are all small issues, but if they could be fixed Dialog could grind their competitors even further into the ground. All in all it’s a good company and I haven’t ever considered leaving. :)

I beg to differ. It may not be classed as customer fraud but my colleagues in IT admitted some customers get billed erroneously and the customer doesn’t even know it. Of course they are trying to fix it, and technology will be technology, being unstable time to time. And there are many instances where it goes haywire. Like when a friend called a toll free number to find himself being billed.

I respect your opinion but have to disagree… Dialog is a bit useless. I have several issues with the company but these are key –

1. why are SMS numbers not displayed on the monthly bill? All I see is +94700003 or whatever and it’s not for a lack of software. Dialog will provide you with a ‘detailed’ bill if you will provide them with about Rs.1,000/- So what gives?

2. why is call quality so ‘freakin’ bad? Call quality drops unexpectedly and this sometimes means I call someone four times instead of just once. That’s four minutes to Dialog and none to me.

3. How is the new discount of 25% after the second minute and 50% after the third minute calculated? Are the calculations displayed clearly on the bill?

Thanks for the comments, very much. People that can do something will look at them.

Sorry Indi, though I do respect your views on Dialog, I do have to point out that it’s NOT a Sri Lankan company and that behind Dr. Hans and the rest of the gang, there are a group of shrewd Malaysian businessmen who are very interested in the profits. Understandably like in any other company but let’s not forget that.

As far as the bills are concerned, Dialog seems to be muddling up AGAINST customers gains ALWAYS as opposed to for the customers. I mean, when was the last time, or did anyone ever, get billed to their advantage? I don’t think so. You maybe getting charged more if you care to look at the detailed bill. That’s why I’d like mine still to be printed then I can mark against the charges. And have you noticed how the monthly rental amount has also gone up? I don’t remember signing up on the new monthly rental package. Should ask a lawyer it its legal… Imagine, Rs. 10 or 20 extra from an almost 5 million people is a huge profit for Dialog every month.

I have been a Dialog post paid customer for over 7 years now simply because I have a few friends working there so I call them instead of the bloody call centre which will keep you on hold or you’ll get an incompetent idiot on the other end trying to bullshit you.

For example, only last week I called the Dialog TV 24 hour hotline and asked about the changing of set top box, only to be told that he can’t help cos I have to wait till they go down the list in alphabetical order. I enlightened him with the fact that my surname starts with B! He then asked me to hold on, which I did for over 7 minutes and then I cut the line and called again to get another ‘Customer Care’ executive, who at least could speak better English and provided the answers. I won’t even go to explain how helpful the call centre was when I called another time to find out how to reload my bro’s KIT card so he could use it in India. The ‘Customer Care’ guy was completely baffled that I was calling the call centre from Sri Lanka though I wanted to reload a card that was being used in India! So once again I had to call back and get another ‘Customer Care’ executive’.

So, my advice is, make at least one friend at Dialog if you want some level of service. Or, switch to another mobile provider. Did you know that Dialog is actually the THIRD in prepaid card sales this year so far? Yep. That’s what you get when you try to ignore answered customer frustrations.

Dialog is a publicly owned company, its public shares making up a huge proportion of the Sri Lankan stock market as a whole. It has thousands of Sri Lankan employees, has invested millions of dollars in the country and serves the country.

Most shares are held by TMI (Telekom Malaysia International) of which Dr. Hans is the Chief Operating Officer.

So I think in the ways that matter it is a Sri Lankan company.

Completely understand that Dialog has ocassional technical issues with systems. As an organisation that has to continuously re-invent itself it is difficult to keep systems completely stable.

However there is one aspect where Dialog really sucks…. That is staff attitude towards customers. Walking into one of your arcades and getting service is like asking them to do you a favour.

There isn’t really a network that can compete with Dialog at the moment in terms of the total value offered to a customer, so its hard for many Dialog subscribers to switch to another network. But when such a network does come, then Dialog will lose many subscribers.

Dialog needs to remember that every customer is important, not just customer who have huge bills. Average ppl like us, who have a decent, but not massive bill are also customers of the company. If they lose the average customer, then much much more will be lost sooner rather than later.

Respect your opinion Indi but Dialog’s billing system has big room for improvement. Last month I actually got charged 70% tax on my bill (something similar to what the chain mails says but I don;t believe Dialog did it intentionally). I’ve had trouble with their billing on at least three other times for the last 4 years (Supplementary lines getting charged normal rate etc etc). The funny thing however is that none of these errors propagated to the finalized bill that was mailed to be. All these errors were present when i checked through web billing but Dialog somehow managed to sort them out before the end of billing cycle.
The other crazy part is that at the end of a billing cycle, their systems go bonkers. There are no billing updates for the next 5 days or so and even the web billing is mostly ‘down for maintenance’ during this time.

Have to agree with most of the comments on this page..my case-point is quite an unscientific one…despite all the lowering of call charges and lifetime discounts, my bill never seems to dip…in fact it keeps increasing…i’m sill trying to track this phenomenon…i’m now logging all my calls and durations…will let you know when it’s complete…anyway one thing i have realized is that Dialog almost seem to be slacking since their public listing…they’ve underestimated the competition and simply let the ball slip…some of the big wig strategists their should realise what matters to the ordinary public…the average don’t care about anarkali harking the virtues of mobile telephony, or 3g IDD or Roaming Coverage or EDGE or GPRS or what not…they just want to make cheap calls and not get ripped off while doing it…

I have followed dialogs progress for the last few years and I’ve admired how they went from being last on the list to top of the list and its interesting to find that they are sliding back down again.
Many reasons, poor service, I suppose that happens in a place like this where good intelligent people are hard to come by. Its not enough that some people are great and its not enough that the senior management is great either. I mean at the end of the day they’ll be just find that they would’ve had the right plans but no real execution.

I’ve been amazed at the rate of product development and always felt that they were the only people in Sri Lanka to really drive it at that pace but if I have an option I would never go back to dialog for a broadband connection and from what I hear about TV installations I don’t wanna risk that either.

The point is dialog claims to be delivering excellent service and thus you come to expect it of them. Now SLT gave me shit service I would be prepared for it but not from Dialog. Its their own doing if they disappoint me, over promising and under delivering.

I would say this but I also do think that there too many young pompous asses working their. They think that just because they are at “DIALOG” it’s a big think. I’m X Y Z executive at Dialog. These are the people that make decisions on a daily basis. I’ve thought Hans has done a great job up until now.

I’ve had my share of crap dished out from Dialog. So if you are in a position to do something about it great.. please do or well it’s a waste of money and it’ll be the ruin of a good company. If I sum this up “Dialog needs to ground itself”

I’m sure there are enough people at dialog who would understand what I mean.

Billing is a problem that all Telcos face, I’ve raised a few questions on the online bill that were later corrected. I hope you have a solid revenue assurance team and process in place because at the rate they are slashing tariffs they are going to need it.

Perhaps you could answer a question for me: why did Dialog, the market leader start a price war in an oligopolistic market? Its great for the consumer but the industry will have a few casualties.

I dropped my Dialog number a few months ago after a good 7 years or so. I’ve been a low end user so I haven’t noticed anything funny in my bill. For a long time in the early years Dialog couldn’t keep up with customer care. I almost never went in cause I didn’t need much support to migrate phones or setup voice mail etc.

I’ve heard this not a sl company etc before. It doesn’t matter its not a charity. A company has to make a profit or shutdown. That is its purpose.

I think why people are frustrated more is that Dialog is better than other providers in many ways but they can’t seem to get all that benefit because there are probably just too many people on it now.

I like the get a friend at Dialog approach. I have a few friends at Dialog. But this year another friend moved to Mobitel and offered me a decent (cheaper) plan so I went for it.