Airtel evokes to the mind the AR Rehman tune and that ofa company which is progressive and one that takes care of its customers.
Alas, how wrong was I !!
Here's My journey -
I have been a cell phone user for the last 6 years, I was a dedicated Hutch / Orange User. I found the service to be quite good, (I have used Orange / Hutch in 4 different Cities - Calcutta, Bombay, Bangalore and New Delhi). It was in delhi that hutch let me down totally, they had major billing problems thats when I stopped using Hutch / Orange. They faltered once and I was UNFORGIVING.
The natural progression was to use Airtel.
So I got a corporate account of airtel to use.
From Day 1, There have been major problems with the level of service.
The ''ACCOUNT MANAGER'' from Airtel for my company (my organization is a very huge one worldwide), was one hell of a ##, I didn't get my connection for about 3 weeks (The Accounts Manager Goofed up majorly), and finally I had 2 SIM CARDS delivered at my home. !!
Getting the Sim card Activated was another major headache.
Took me about 4 days to get a Corporate Post Paid Connection Activated. !!!!!!!
Well well ..
Then began the billing problems.
I had to make arbitary payments twice because my usage was high than the ''POLICY'' set by airtel.
In the duration I must have called the help line 20 times,
Once the guy even threatened me about having to make payments within the next
48 hours, and the Consumer Acts states that no Payments to service providers are to be made without a bill or a document.
On top of that, Of the 20 odd calls I made the calls were dropped at least 5 -7 times when I was to speak to the ''FLOOR MANAGER''.
The icing for the cake came when on the 24th of january after receiving the letter for the payment, I made an instantaneous online transfer from my account to Airtel.
And on the 25th afternoon Airtel Promptly cuts off my outgoing calls !!!!!
Well so much for Customer Service. The same day(25th) I called the customer service dept and all they did was ''SIR, GIVE US ONE MORE CHANCE TO SERVE YOU'' is what I got.
The level of service is so pathetic that all they think about is the money and not about Customer Satisfaction or providing a decent service.
When I Faced the same problem with Hutch, It was corrected by the Accounts Manager who came down specifically to address all the issues.
In Airtel, All they have thought about is how to get the money out of you.
My expereince with Airtel is bitter.
I also have Equity Shares with Bharati Teleservices, And inspite of the Profits that they have made, I am SURE, COMPANIES WHICH IGNORE THE CUSTOMER NEEDS SHALL FALL BY THE WAY''.
I have a Touchtel Connection at home, Which I am giving up, and also I had plans of availing Broadband Services of Touchtel which I am sure now I shall NEVER AVAIL.
My Experience with Airtel is extreme, but as a customer I shall never avail any services which are offered by AIRTEL, and the Equity which I hold of Bharati Teleservices (i have sold them) as an investor I am not willing to put my money in a company which doesnt have any respect for its customers.
So for me Airtel is ALL AIR AND NO TEL !!