Airtel Digital TV has got one of the most pathetic customer care service!!
I had wanted Discovery and Movies Now in HD and when I called the customer care they said they need to change the dish direction and it would be attended to in 48 hours, and that someone would come and change it. I waited for 48*5 hours and nothing happened and meanwhile I had called 5 times to the customer care and every time the response is different.
Different to the extent that one of them said ’Sir, it is not in our hands when the engineer would come and they would come area wise and you need to wait till he visits your area’ I am like WOW! And then next time I called someone said it would be done in half hour! And out of frustration I wrote an email to the customer care and someone indeed call me the next day and promised that it would be resolved in 12 hours. And again 12*5 hours went and nothing happened!
And finally another guy called up and he was like ’Sir I can’t promise you when it would be done. And it is not like you are not getting any channels; it is just the additional channels that you are asking for that you are not getting. So why are you getting worried’ and that was it. I decided there is no point in following up and said ’if this is the way you would be talking to your customers, love like Airtel and slammed the phone down (Oh yeah felt so good doing it). Immediately in 5 mins he called and said a guy would come to my place in half hour!
And the guy came and he had brought another one and this guy went upstairs to change the direction of the dish, and wow, the other guy actually used my phone to say this guy about the settings and stuff (like for 10 mins) I know it is not a big deal, but is this how it is supposed to be? Use customer’s mobile phones to communicate!!
Airtel is probably the most pathetic of all the DTH customer services I have seen. Please go elsewhere if you are actually looking for good customer care, and the quality of programs these days is the same with any standard DTH (Dish, Tata, Sun direct and Big).
Some of the major cons against AIrtel DTH:
Absolutely pathetic customer care lines! You need to wait 15 mins before you actually get connected to a call center guy. You have to go through insane number of pressing 1s and 2s and listening to their marketing messages!
Even when you choose english as your language in call, you still end up with someone who says ’Namashkar main aapo kaisa seva kar saktha hoon’ and this guy’s english is then pathetic to say the least!
Their online website is down most of the time, and even then it is not up to date with the channels so you really cant add anything through that.
4.Even though it is Airtel, a big brand at the end of the day you have to deal with the local guys here for installations or changes in set top box or anything. And they just blame the call center guys if at all there is any issue and they dont own up for anything and you have to be at their mercy all the time!
Airtel is slow in adding HD channels and so far there are just 3 where as other providers have atleast 10 channels.
No one in the call center can actually explain the packages and help you choose what you want.
The quality of the programs is not anything better than the other DTH services.
Every this is thro sms and every sms costs you 3 rupees. Before you want to add 5 channels you end up spending 40-50 rupees which is actually more than the cost of the channels themselves!
The executives to whom the calls get escalated to are even more ruder than the call center guys and they talk as though they are so busy. One guy told me’ every customer is complaining of the same thing so you need to wait’ If everyone is complaining isnt it a bad thing? Arent you supposed to be doing something at the grass root level?
Airtel is just trying to increase the customer base and that they are not able to support the customer base with the current infrastructure and it is going to get even worse with the increasing customer base.
Last..I would be doing good if I am able to lure someone not to buy Airtel and go for something else. heard Tata Sky is much better than Airtel as they are in the business for quite sometime now and the initial ripples have been set!
I dont want airtel to be the best(and I never expect them to be) atleast talking cordially to your customers and listening patiently to them is humanly possible?