| Address: Bangalore, Karnataka |
Hi,
To Whom ever it may concern...
This story would be long, some times funny, but it is the pain in my heart about their service.
I have been a loyal Airtel customer for all these years. at least 6 months back I was told about Airtel's HD service and they made me to upgrade by STB to HD STB. I was so happy that from now i would get HD.
Before getting into the problem, I would like to warn that I came to Bangalore 8 months before and the customer service in Bangalore (south) is the worst. They say they will come and install, but never come for a month, after repeated heated conversations with the customer care, someone came to install.
I got HD installed in the same way, and finally got the only HD channel of that time which was NAT GEO HD.
Now they have introduced few more channels, and I asked the customer care to activate them for me. to get the new package which includes NAT GEO HD, I removed it from my current list. and registered with them to activate the new package. This i think happened in 1st week of April 2011.
As usual nothing happened, so followed up with the Customer care, who told me that they will have to change the direction of the Dish to align to their new satellite, and after which they will activate my new package. and they promised that they will send someone in max of 2 days to do it.
it was 2 weeks, and no one came. I called the "CARE" again, now to know that there was no registration of that request. I became furious and asked for a senior care person. I spoke with the senior and he promised that it will be registered and will be taken care of in next 48 hours. Registration this time did happen, but none turned up (this was on 20th of April 2011).
Continuous calling and shouting at the famous answering machine "CARE", yeah that is the best way to call the Airtel Customer Care, because every time I speak to them I hear the same few dialogues like "We are Sorry" , "we understand your pain", "we assure you this will not happen again", "the complaint is registered and will be taken care of within 48 hours (some times 5 days)". So the best description about the Airtel customer care is "HUMAN PRE-RECORDED ANSWERING MACHINE".
Now back to the story, after continuous fights, someone finally was ready in the "CARE" to give me few numbers of the the engineers/ managers here in Bangalore South, so i can stop bothering the "CARE" and bother them instead for the solution. Hurray .. now i got new people to shout at... These people are even more good. They attend the call for the first time, just to know who is calling and for what... once they hear the sad story, they will assure that they will send someone to take care of it, and later never pick the call if they see the same number(poor CARE people can't do that).
After repeated ringings to these people, finally one of the picked up the phone again ( due to the repeated ringing, I never gave away the HOPE). The person said that he will send the engineer immediately, he gave me the regular excuses (for not answering my call) that all his engineers were busy all these while and he didn't receive any complaint form the "CARE". Yeah, he was blaming the "CARE" saying they don't know what to do, they are pathetic (which is true, but for his justification ?? ), they don't send details fast, or give wrong details, et all. To cut it short, someone did come, I was so happy... no more of cries... He checked the setting of my Dish in the terrace, finally told me that the DISH has to be relocated to a new place, only then i would get signal from new satellite. I said that is great, go ahead and relocate... He reacted... "there is a problem Sir, you see my Drilling machine has gone bad and i had given it for repair, I will bring my friend's drilling machine tomorrow , sharp at 10 am and do the needful". I did sense the trouble coming ahead, I asked him - " are you sure ? will you come tomorrow ? at 10 am? sharp ??, if you want to come by 11 or 12 also is fine, but please do come and finish it".
Tomorrow, 11 am, I called this person and asked "where are you? are you not coming? ", his answer was, " I would love to come sir, unfortunately I still didn't get the Drilling Machine from my friend, you see he needs it". This was the regular answer for next three days. The He also stopped picking up my phone !
Now... months passed... suddenly i get a call from a new airtel engineer that he would come and fix the problem in my dish... he said he will come the same day and asked if i am at home ? (Does these people really thing we don't have any other job other than waiting for them at our home every day ? ) I replied, " not today, i'm at work, come on Saturday". I had wasted lots of Saturdays and Sundays for these esteemed people already, so one more Saturday for good will not harm. To my "NO SURPRISE", no one came.
July 2nd, 2011 - A new person called saying he will come on this day (Saturday again). None came, finally today (July 3rd) someone called and said that he is coming to fix the problem.. I asked him " Are you bringing your Drilling Machine? ". He said "NO, Do I have to?".
What shall I DO ???? I called up the CARE(the long lost friends) again, again heard their same recorded dialogues ( not the automated answering machines, but the Human answering machines) and fianlly he said, he will make sure that the problem is solved in 5 days. I said, I'm enough of this... now i need to know one answer... "Are you going to make it happen today or are you going to give my money back, take your HD STB back, so that i can go to any other provider? ". He said he will put me to a Senior... and there goes the phone on "the great airtel waiting song" for next 20 minutes. then the phone went dead.
NOW, SIR!! Please tell me what I should Do ? Will there be any solution for me ? or all the money i have put is a waste ? Shall i just throw the STB and the DISH into the Dustbin and think I was robbed ?
Please tell me , what I should do...
Regards,
Sachin
Airtel DTH number - [protected]
Airtel Prepaid — Bothering Cricket Alert on 9960625576
Its quite form long time I have been complaining to Airtel customer care "121" for deactivation of Cricket Alert, for which I have never subscribed. It not only bothers me even in the night time but also deducts Rs. 3, Rs. 5, every day. It is nuisance, Breach of Trust, It is looting the customer. TRAI must look into it. As airtel advertises 15 Lac customer they have in Mumbai like other cities, any one can assume the money they are looting form customer every day. Bhart air tel must have some responsibility towards society, they should not loose their goodwill by gaining some short term money. I must say every Value added SMS must contain it's deactivation code, and it must work immediately.Jai hind
Gautam