I bought this Airtel DTH about 1 year back trusting Airtel’s service would be better any day compared to Tata Sky. Also, because Airtel’s pricing was much competitive than Tata Sky. Today, after so many days of using Airtel DTH, I can finally share my views freely because I generally don’t like writing bad stuff about companies. I prefer being a person who gives positive feedback so companies can improve, but perhaps not this time around.
The problem started when my set top box stopped working because of a lightening thunder on a particular night which had somehow damaged the STB, burnt the wiring at some place and also burnt the transponder (whatever you call it - the thing attached to the dish). Here is what I learnt about Airtel DTH’s customer service and I will caution anyone buying Airtel DTH to be aware of this before going for it:
Airtel’s customer support has gone bad. Gone are the days when you would make one phone call and everything would fall in place. Today calling up airtel from non-airtel no would be a pain because half the time the nos which you have will be changed. Calling from Airtel mobile / land line is the only option. Then again, dialining 198 from Airtel phones and going through the long IVR ordeal would connect you to customer support, but co-incidentally whenever I had called the customer support, the call always and always gets disconnected in between the IVR process or while talking to the support exec. So, on an average you will have to spend 10-15 minutes to be able to get your complaint registered.
If anything goes wrong with your set top box, you will have to live with a peculiar ordeal. All the serivce engineers do not belong to Airtel. They are third party local franchisees who are appointed on behalf of the company who will ’solve’ your complaint. You will also have to pay Rs. 75 - 125 for the serivce charges. Yes. Have you heard of it ever before?
Since it’s the franchises who rule the roost when it comes to local repairs, they are not swift in service. In my case, it took a 100 phone calls, to 10-20 odd people and then pleaded the guy to come home and check the problem. It took about 15 days for the person to come home from the date I raised a complaint with the customer support.
The franchisee person will try his best to extract extra money if there is a bigger problem. In my case, he said "Sir, your cabling has so many joints, please replace them". On questioning, why this was done at the time of installation headed no answer. Result - if you want better signal, change the cable. It costed me a good Rs. 1000/- for the same and what did he do in the end. Installed similar cable with multiple joints. Technically fleecing me of a good 1000 bucks for my stupidity in believing him.
So, while he replaced the STB, not all channels were working. And he said he would come back the next day. To my surprise, he again ignored my calls and it took 4 days and a threat of writing to nodal officer and writing to newspapers that they responded and got things going.
Apart from this, while adding extra channels is quite easy, they do not have any manual or information on TV / Airtel’s website / mobile app on how to remove a channel. You will have to call them and if you lucky to get though the customer support IVR, you can tell them to pause a channel. Had an issue once when I had subscribed one channel and then later asked them to remove it but guess they forgot to do so. So, was charged for two months after which had to call and get it removed.
My ordeal with dealing with the customer support of Airtel has been a patience test. Can’t describe more. While the picture quality is good, I have seen guests come home and say that Tata Sky has better picture quality and speak loads about they customer support.
All in all, if you wish to go for Airtel only because you think their customer support is good, think twice. They do not have direct service engineers who can solve your issues. All of them who are ready to fleece you notwithstanding the amount of time you will spend chasing those people to get your work done.