I am a post paid customer from Airtel Karnataka. I have been with airtel in Bangalore for the past 8 years. Was a prepaid custumer 4 years back. I was reasonably happy because I never had any chance to interact with their so called customer service.
One fine day I found that My SIM bacame inactive without any reason. I called 9845012345 from other network to ask why my SIM was inactive. They apologized for their mistake and told me issue will be resolved within 4 hours. 1 day passed no action. Called again same story. This happened for 5 days.
Then they told me My sim card has a issue I should get duplicate one from their customer service center. I went to their customer service center paid 50bucks got a duplicate SIM. They told it will be activated in 2Hours. Came back to office, after 2 hours switched on mobile only to find that now I am a prepaid customer with an unknown number with a balance of 0.25 paise.
I called their customer service from my phone, It was connected to prepaid section. This man is refused to take complaint saying I have to call post paid connection section. Now I decided to call nodal officer karnataka. These nodal officers are not any different from their regular call center. This lady again promised me that they will restore the connection within 4 hours. 2days passed nothing happened.
I sent a mail to appellate officer and nodal officers several times. You get a standard reply that they will look into this soon. Nothing happens. I have almost called their nodal officer atleast 10 times in 10days. Now this lady says, issue is resolved and that I should go to thier cust service center and get a new SIM!!!. They have tested all my patience. Hell broke.
I decided to cancel the connection now. I called their customer care for cancellation. This guy transfered calls to cancellation desk.
This guy was really good. He asked me why I am cancelling my number. I told him my story patiently that the airtel can not fix my issue. I just want to go away from Airtel. He told me he will restore the connection in 4 hours else I can cancel my number. So I agreed. He did a great job in restoring my connection within 2 Hours!!! I got got my number after 12days.
Now the question is why does the Airtel has customer service who only apologizes for everything and do nothing. More over they misguide you to take duplicate SIMs. Lies you saying server down, or issu will be fixed within 4 hours. Their nodal officers are rude and worse than those call center guys. They never want to fix customer complaints because they think if one costumer goes away it does not matter to their business.
I only wanted to get my number back because this number is known to all by near and dear ones from the past 8 years. I wish the number portability comes and let us teach them a good lesson.