I purchased an Airtel postpaid connection recently. The SIM has not been activated yet despite me submitting all required documents and an Airtel executive paying a visit to my home for verification. When I dialled airtel customer service on 9845012345, I got no help whatsoever. In fact, the customer service was so horrible that I’ve already started regretting choosing airtel over other mobile companies. I made three calls so far today.
During the first call, the customer service rep by name ’Wasim’ asked me for the name and mobile number of the retailer from whom I purchased it! When I told him I didn’t have it, he had the gall to tell me to go get the mobile number of the retailer from the retailer and then call airtel customer service.
He refused to raise a complaint and give me a complaint number saying that as I was "not having complete information", he cannot raise a complaint. It made no sense to me - why would any customer store mobile numbers of retailers? Isn’t airtel supposed be able to see from some centralized database what the status of each connection is, when the customer supplies them with his / her 10 digit mobile number? Apparently no. Anyway, when I protested on these lines, Mr Wasim smartly got off the phone with me saying he’ll arrange a call back to my current number from his manager - which of course, never happened.
During the second call, the customer service rep put me on hold and basically forgot about me. I held the line for over 10 minutes listening to just silence and finally hung up.
During my third call, the rep I landed up with was rude and dumb. When I told him that I am calling regarding a post paid connection not getting activated, he said he’ll put me on hold for some time and then give me the information. When I asked him how he could retrieve any information without me giving him my 10 digit mob number yet (that’s right, I hadn’t yet even given him my number), he told me quite rudely to just hold the line while he puts me on hold.
Sure enough, after a minute, he got back on the line to ask me my 10 digit mob number so he can retrieve the info! After this, he said he’ll "transfer" my call (no information about to whom or why). Again, I was on hold for over 10 minutes after which I hung up.
Personally, I am not so much concerned about the delay in activation of the sim as I am appalled and disgusted by the rudeness and stupidity of airtel’s customer service representatives.