Airtel was touching tomorrow a few years back when mobile phone service was called in the names of RPG and Skycell in Chennai. Bharti had taken over the service from Skycell in the late 2001, and was advertising its new Magic Prepaid brand to the chennai customers. Lot of hope, hoping that, atleast this major would do some change to the mobile market. This was not just a hope, but had some reason behind it. Airtel took over JTM (Karnataka Circle) and then made it to the top, even over taking the first player in the market, Spice Telecom.
From then to today, Airtel has had so many plans, schemes and problems, that we need Calculus to find the exact quantum of it. It never had a tough competition, RPG was all into ruins from the day they stopped their pager service. Airtel was almost ruling the market, when hutch entered the market. Now lot of hopes on hutch and the story goes on.
Now for a few experiences.. Airtel is well known for its customer service, so much that we find that, that team is increasing numbers exponentially. So many problems, so many that we are not able to understand how they are market leaders.
I am having an airtel connection with a good looking number for the last 3 years. One of my friend works in Airtel, and so I didn’t face much of problems. Then came my direct interaction with the so called Airtel Customer CARE team. A very simple thing. I wanted to activate my roaming, as I was on a trip to Bangalore. Called them on a thursday, and I was leaving the next day. The only good thing about waiting in the customer care line of airtel is the AR Rahman’s music.
We wait for so long, so long that we don’t know if it is day or night. Then some one answers in a very sweet tone. By that time, you wouldn’t actually remember why you called(I guess thats a strategy!). When I explained my situation(nothing special, just ACTIVATE ROAMING). I was told that it would take 3 working days, before that they would need to check my residence address and would come to find if I physically live there. I informed them that I am having this connection for the last 2 1/2 years and there is not even one bill default. ’’No Sir, we cannot do it immediately’’, was the reply.
I was almost furious, but I badly wanted my number on roaming. All my attempts to convince the customer care on getting the roaming activated failed (the marketing people convince you to buy the connection and once you do it, you will need to convince the customer care to make your connection work). Finally, I asked them if they can do it or not, they said ’’No Sir, it will take 3 working days. Any thing else I can help you on Sir?’’, I said ’’No Thanks’’ and hung up. I had another Hutch post paid card, which came to the rescue. Called up Hutch customer care, they wanted me to pay Rs.500 in any of the nearest hutch shops, call them back with the Receipt number. The roaming got activated in 6 hours flat and the next day, I was in bangalore with a Hutch Roaming card.
This is just one of the instances, I have a lot in store for Airtel. As airtel loves their customers, they automatically activate your voice mail facility. Everyone who calls me when my phone is switched off will leave a message for me in my voice mail box and then scold me for not returning the call. This became a bigger headache, and so I requested Airtel to deactivate the Voice mail box facility. They(customer CARE) wanted me to give a letter in any of the nearest Airtel outlets. I went to one of the outlets and they said, they are in no way related to all these deactivation and requested (the only airtel people to request) me to give it in the Main Airtel (Nungambakkam, Chennai). I went there.
Wow, I haven’t seen such a crowd in such a small place, even Tirupati wouldnt have seen such a crowd in such a small place. I thought the place was small, didn’t realize it was because of the slow pace in reacting to customer queries. There would be a few people, who look like supervisors, who will want you to (necessarily)sit. You will be waiting waiting waiting....say some 2-3 hours is a normal wait time, when there is less crowd. I waited all along just to give one letter to deactivate my voice mail box.
After all this wait, one security guy came and took the letter from me and told me to leave. The letter was submitted, but the deactivation was never done even after one month. Then I caught hold of one marketing executive from Airtel and pushed this matter through him. And it was finally resolved.
These are some classic examples of Airtel Customer Care where they express themselves. I would just say, think Airtel, think Customer Care.