[Resolved]  Airtel — Airtel: Very very bad customer service

I have been customer of Airtel cellular service for more than one year. I haven’t had a major problem with quality of network during this period except regular call blocking for hours (They block your number so you can not make of receive calls, and this is acknowledged by there customer service Rep on 121). Not that I had high regard for Airtel Customer Service Reps before this experience as they are nothing but another set of recording trained to repeatedly utter something on the tune of ‘mein aapko adhik se adhik jaankaari uplabdh karaane kaa prayaas karungaa’ rather than providing any useful ‘jaankaari’. Though, irritating these things were, I was never bothered much until my recent experience.

My problem started when all the cellular service providers slashed their STD calling rates. Earlier, the STD rates were more than Rs. 2/min so I had subscribed to Airtel’s weekly rental plan that charges Rs 25/week but you pay only Rs. 1.20/min for STD calls. Now, since STD calls are only Rs. 1.50/min, I wanted to cancel my weekly rental scheme, as it does not make my STD calling significantly cheaper. With this novel intent to save my Rs. 100 month I called Airtel Customer Service number 121. Here is the history of my interaction with various Airtel Customer Service Reps and Seniors on Airtel’s Complaint Hotline on 198 over a period of a month:

First week of September, 2008:

I dial 121: Rep says he cannot help me because his system is down and advises me to call again after some time.

September 10, 2008:

I dial 121: Get a Rep with working system, he accepted my complaint and promised that my weekly rental scheme will be deactivated within 24 hrs (or it could be 48 hrs, I do not remember clearly). But, he refused to provide me with a reference number for the complaint.

September 16, 2008:

The Rep acknowledges that a complaint was received on 10th September but the weekly rental scheme could not be deactivated because of some technical problem. But it will be deactivated within 24 hrs. Rep again refuses to provide a reference number for the complaint.

September 20, 2008:

I get a person with nonworking system; he refused to transfer my call to another Rep.

I dialed 121 again. The Rep apologizes that my weekly rental scheme has not been cancelled. He asks me about balance and validity that I have. I had a good balance with validity up to January 2009. He advised me to go for a life time validity recharge for Rs. 196 that will give Rs. 100 talk time, and assures me that this will cancel all the previous schemes. I refused to do that because it would cost me Rs. 96. Also, as I have good 4 months validity and many better recharge/validity schemes may be available in future. Agreeing to my argument, he promised that the rental scheme would be deactivated within 24 hrs.

The scheme was not cancelled and Airtel was deducting Rs. 25 every week for the service that I did not really wanted to use. Being frustrated with Airtel’s Customer Service Representatives, I searched online for any other way out of this. To my temporary relief I found that Airtel has a Complaint Redressel Mechanism. They have Nodal Officers contact number at: http://airtel.in/applications/xm/ReachMobile_CS_NodalOfficer.jsp and Appellate Authority contact number at: http://airtel.in/applications/xm/ReachMobile_CS_AppellateAuth.jsp

So I thought, finally, there is somebody who can possible solve my problem. But, alas, after repeatedly trying the numbers provided on the Airtel’s website (and mind you, in the case of Mumbai that number given on Nodal Officer link is for Appellate Authority and vice versa) I could not hear the voice of Nodal Officer or Appellate Authority. All I got to hear is their schedule and some scary music followed by beep beep beep beep…

October 4, 2008:

Now having exhausted all the feasible options (I do not know whether going to consumer court will the worth the efforts) I decided to follow the advice of the ‘Friendly’ Airtel Customer Care Rep on September 20. I went to nearby Airtel center to get the lifetime validity for Rs. 196 and lose Rs. 96 once rather then losing more than Rs. 100 every month (as there are more that 4 weeks in a month). I lost all my wits when I was told that I cannot get this recharge as I am subscribed to one of the Airtel’s weekly rental schemes and need to get deactivated that before getting this Recharge.

October 4, 2008:

The Rep accepts my complaint about canceling the weekly rental scheme and requests if he could put me on hold for 30 secs. Never answers back.

I dialed 121 again: The Rep takes my complaint to cancel to weekly rental scheme and promises that it will be cancelled within 24 hrs. But reference number for the complaint was not given.

During my various calls to Airtel, one of messages that stuck in my mind was call 198 for you complaints. So I decided to give it a try.

The Rep that I got to spoke seemed reasonable and very concerned but she told me that the only complaint that she could see was lodged on October 4, 2008 and it would take 24 hrs for it to be processed. I asked if there is a reference number associated with the complaint, she promptly said yes and provided me with a number [protected].

October 8, 2008:

I called 198 to see the status of my complaint, the Rep says the scheme was not deactivated because of some technical problem and will be deactivated within 24 hrs. He also gives me a number[protected].

October 9, 2008:

I get an SMS from 121 saying ‘Thank you for contacting Airtel. Your request reference number is [protected]. For your concerns, kindly dial 198(toll free).”

But the scheme is yet to be cancelled. Now I am thinking that I will switch to some other service provider once my balance becomes zero. I will switch to some other cellular service provider not because I believe that they are better than Airtel in their service, but at least I will not be losing Rs. 25 a week for rest of my life (or the plan’s life) as will be the case if I continue with Airtel.

Thanks
Pankaj