gripes about online services from Govt-run undertakings

Canara bank was fined for non-compliance, and is now planning to overhaul its IT infrastructure. Something similar might be needed for LIC also soon. Some points from my recent experience with the LIC, their customer portal and phone-based customer service - 

1. Money was credited to my account. But no intimation about which policy etc. Digging around in the portal showed one of the policies' "survival benefit" processed 2 months ago - that seems to have been credited now. 

2. Asking by email or via phone support about which policy credited the amount - no reply to email, and phone support wanted me to enter policy number, but gives too short a time to enter the 9 digit number! Tried without entering the number, but the agent said I have to enter the number for them to help me. Phone support also pointed me to the wrong section on website for checking which policy credited the amount. Instead of Premier Services -> Policy Claim History, the agent on the phone was guiding me towards Basic Services -> Claim Status. The latter seems to show maturity etc in the future, while the former shows the past credits, which is what I had asked for.

3. "Service request" - OTP kept being rejected "Wrong OTP..." on Edge browser. Finally tried Chrome browser, that works. Phone support initially asked me to email portalsupport at licindia dot com, no reply. I filled up a new ticket as mentioned on the home page of their new portal, again no reply. 

4. After going through all those hoops, "Could not connect to server, try again later".

5. Luckily, when I tried again the next day, it worked. This "try later" business is applicable to the "Jeevan Saakshya" app also. Sometimes it just doesn't work. Trying again later, after a few hours or days - it may then work. 

6. Some of their warnings to policy holders given on the website seem to be at odds with the instructions given to the people in their offices. A random person rang up me up saying that he's an agent, and I could send the policy to him so that the survival benefit could be credited to me! This, in spite of the NEFT registration already done on the portal for that policy. Finally, their office rang me up, clarifying that it is their policy to inform "good agents"(!) about maturing policies so that users can re-invest. Anyway, I could send an email to them with the form they wanted me to to fill up, along with a picture of the policy, and though they said that the money would be credited the next day, it actually took a week.

Maybe this sort of bad IT infrastructure is not limited to Govt-run undertakings - TCS comes to mind with their terrible websites in the past. Hopefully improving now. 

Just a random link about issues with govt offices, which are much much worse than their online systems - https://old.reddit.com/r/Kerala/comments/rbvpue/what_are_some_of_the_worst_experiences_youve_had/

 

Edit: August 2023 - Credit where credit is due. Calling / emailing the "customer zone" at Kozhikode for LIC gave a very different experience. The person taking the call / answering the emails was very helpful, was ready to give a printout of the required amount credited details, gave all the details I asked for by email when I said I was out of town. Probably this is a direct employee of LIC, as against the contract workers manning the toll-free number.