Airtel Customer (Don't) Care: As useless as ever
When does a person get frustrated to the core? Probably when he badly needs some help and no one around is ready to assist. Airtel Customer Care is one such call centre which is determined enough to put you in such a hopeless situation.
I do have reason to be spilling my anguish here about Airtel's customer care service. There are many incidents which clearly indicate that Airtel is much interested in cheating its customers.
Incident #1: Connection not deactivated
My friend, who had an Airtel corporate connection in Bangalore, got transferred to Hyderabad. Since he didn't need this postpaid connection any more, he filled an application to cancel the connection and asked me get it deactivated. I went to their office (none of their executives, who come running to give you a new connection, would come to take the disconnection form) around January 20th and gave the application form. They took the application along with the outstanding amount and stated that the connection will be deactivated within two working days. However, after about 20 days, a bill was sent for that connection. When I called the customer care, they told that the application itself hasn't been received! So I gave the bill number of the outstanding amount which I had payed and also told details about the office where I had given the application. They also gave a complaint number and assured the same thing: the connection will be deactivated within two working days. Then again, as usual, I got the bill for the month of February in March. I called the customer care again and censured them about the issue. Again the ready reply came: it will surely be deactivated within 48 hours. I am still waiting for the disconnection of that SIM.
Incident #2: Security Deposit not returned
Another colleague of my friend, who was also transferred to Hyderabad, had given an application to deactivate. But the Airtel people didn't deactivate it and in the next month, they deducted security deposit of Rs. 300/- and deactivated. As he is not insane to come to Bangalore by spending more than Rs. 300/- to get Rs. 300/- back, the money will permanently be with Airtel.
Incident #3: SIM Deactivated because of failed address verification
Airtel address verifiers are not Pizza boys to always find the correct address within half an hour. But don't be under the impression that they will try their level best to find the place. Airtel will simply deactivate your SIM giving failed address verification as the reason. If you call customer care you'll get the ready answer again: Sorry for inconvenience sir. Our person will come today evening and verify your address. This happened with my colleague just three days back and after calling customer care and getting the before said answer every day, today the concerned person came to our office, and gave the report as house address is verified. He told that the SIM will be reactivated by today evening, but you know, I have my doubts!
This is not the end of the list. There are many more similar experiences. According to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Airtel is having maximum subscriber base in Karnataka. If it's customer care service is so useless here itself, I can't help but feel sorry for the Airtel customers in other places.
One more point to be noted is, it is not only Airtel which follows such a nasty purview with the customers. Apparently Hutch (now Vodafone) and other operators also do the same thing. Sometimes I feel as though having a mobile phone itself is a sin. What is the need of these helplines if they can't even resolve even simplest of the requests raised by the user, let alone extreme technical issues. In my opinion, such call centres should be referred as Customer Don't Cares instead of Customer Cares. They seem to know that the best service is no service. What do you think?
Incident #1: Connection not deactivated
My friend, who had an Airtel corporate connection in Bangalore, got transferred to Hyderabad. Since he didn't need this postpaid connection any more, he filled an application to cancel the connection and asked me get it deactivated. I went to their office (none of their executives, who come running to give you a new connection, would come to take the disconnection form) around January 20th and gave the application form. They took the application along with the outstanding amount and stated that the connection will be deactivated within two working days. However, after about 20 days, a bill was sent for that connection. When I called the customer care, they told that the application itself hasn't been received! So I gave the bill number of the outstanding amount which I had payed and also told details about the office where I had given the application. They also gave a complaint number and assured the same thing: the connection will be deactivated within two working days. Then again, as usual, I got the bill for the month of February in March. I called the customer care again and censured them about the issue. Again the ready reply came: it will surely be deactivated within 48 hours. I am still waiting for the disconnection of that SIM.
Incident #2: Security Deposit not returned
Another colleague of my friend, who was also transferred to Hyderabad, had given an application to deactivate. But the Airtel people didn't deactivate it and in the next month, they deducted security deposit of Rs. 300/- and deactivated. As he is not insane to come to Bangalore by spending more than Rs. 300/- to get Rs. 300/- back, the money will permanently be with Airtel.
Incident #3: SIM Deactivated because of failed address verification
Airtel address verifiers are not Pizza boys to always find the correct address within half an hour. But don't be under the impression that they will try their level best to find the place. Airtel will simply deactivate your SIM giving failed address verification as the reason. If you call customer care you'll get the ready answer again: Sorry for inconvenience sir. Our person will come today evening and verify your address. This happened with my colleague just three days back and after calling customer care and getting the before said answer every day, today the concerned person came to our office, and gave the report as house address is verified. He told that the SIM will be reactivated by today evening, but you know, I have my doubts!
This is not the end of the list. There are many more similar experiences. According to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Airtel is having maximum subscriber base in Karnataka. If it's customer care service is so useless here itself, I can't help but feel sorry for the Airtel customers in other places.
One more point to be noted is, it is not only Airtel which follows such a nasty purview with the customers. Apparently Hutch (now Vodafone) and other operators also do the same thing. Sometimes I feel as though having a mobile phone itself is a sin. What is the need of these helplines if they can't even resolve even simplest of the requests raised by the user, let alone extreme technical issues. In my opinion, such call centres should be referred as Customer Don't Cares instead of Customer Cares. They seem to know that the best service is no service. What do you think?
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8 comments:
Harish.
I suggest you one thing,
In such situations, where customer has to pay if things go wrong, he should keep a duplicate copy of application form which he submits to the corresponding office, with the attestation of person who takes the original form. The customer can use that duplicate copy in such bad situations, as proof of disconnection. I have done the same thing while disconnecting our BSNL landline connection(fortunately, everything was all right in my case)
Avinash, your suggestion is worthy. However the thing is, the situation here is completely contrary to yours.. BSNL people are slow in giving connections, but fast in taking them back. But these private companies give the connection in an hour or so, but to get rid of them, they take the hell out of us.. :(
hey i also had my sim deactivated for failure of address verification. But at the time the airtel people verified my address and about to give the connection back the sim was already recycled. i went to the airtel office first and we assaulted the office staff for an hour or so and then i went to the main distributor and i had got my money back
Yes harish ,i totally agree.Really airtel customer care is depressing one only.
Even i faced the same.i took two cooperate postpaid sim in same address.my number got disconnected for 10days and my other number got disconnected for almost 1month.
and the funny thing is they came twice for address verification for same address that to after calling customer care for n number of times.
Well, i reside in New Delhi, the city where Airtel operates from throughout the nation. Vodafone,Airtel,Idea,MTNL and BSNL have their registered corporate offices here only. I wrote to the nodal officer here, regarding poor customer care services , but the response is a very pathetic one. I wasn't able to activate a promotional scheme on my prepaid number,about which i had been getting messges from Airtel. These guys blocked my number from the call centre when i repeatedly called them over regarding When i wrote the nodal officer about this , he said that "there was no such scheme on". How foolish are these airtel management guys. I also own an Airtel connection in Rajasthan, where i was charged Rs2.40/min for local call in roaming circle while roaming which should have been charged @ Re1/min. I mailed the Rajasthan nodal officer many times but it was of no use. Now i have taken the matter up with the appelette officer. If the matter isnt taken care of there, i think that i might just approach the hon. consumer courts to get my part of justice.
Hey Regarding that security deposit not being returned. Whwn he comes to Bangalore next time, tell him to file a case in consumer court. He can claim for more than 1000rs stating he had to come for that purpose only.
That was really bad! Customer service is vital to the success of any business. Despite how good your product or service is, customer service can make you up or it can break you. So you better treat your customer in a very nice way.
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