Meru - RELY ON US! - Whattay farce!

A few days ago, I had to make an urgent trip from Malad to Nariman Point. I must've been damned when Meru's tagline RELY ON US registered with my sensibilities, and I requested for their service. What I saw was a stark example of how a brand's performance goes tangentially away from the values it boasts of. Here's a snapshot of the proceedings:

4 PM - I call Meru RELY ON US and ask for a cab; am told it will pick me by 5 PM

5.15 PM - The cabbie tells me he is stuck at the nearest signal to where I am waiting, and he will be there soon

5.25 PM - I call frantically, he is still stuck at the 'same signal' (Now the same answer is repeated each time I call, till around 6 PM).

6 PM - I blow my top, take another car, and call the Meru RELY ON US guys to tell them how unhappy I am.

Now, there's one thing called customer dissatisfaction, but what I got here was augmented customer dissatisfaction, if ever there was such a word. For, when I called them simply requesting them to pass their phone to their team leader, they either refused, or they simply dropped off. On the fourth occasion, they obliged and made the team leader speak to me. Now, in a desperate attempt to salvage the image of Meru-RELY ON US, the team leader launched a senseless tirade against me, accusing me of not being watchful enough, and telling me that the cab was at the required pick-up point at sharp 5 PM! Obviously that meant that one of the cabbie or the team leader was lying! And lying rather stupidly!

The rest of the experience I had with the team leader is best forgotten. But my only inference from the whole episode is that Meru RELY ON US can't quite be relied on. Surely not when you have an emergency to attend to. The services of a company that can't respect its customer's time commitments are best left to experiment with on a lazy Saturday evening.