Airtel does not provide any support to its customers - thank you very
much. It probably thinks that being the largest operator in India
precludes any further need of keeping their customers happy.
The call centers are manned by extremely poor quality people - they can
only read off memorized lines - have no basic information in place.
They cant even answer a basic question like whether a customer will
require to present certain documents in order to effect a change of
address. "Thank you for calling Airtel, have a great day" is all they
can rattle off with confidence.
Airtel as a service provider is mired in processes. Their processes or
SLAs require that a request from a customer needs to be executed within
3 days. Very good. But what if the customer is an unfortunate
loser working for a company which, unlike Airtel, has a strong
client orientation? That means, that this customer might not be
available to cooperate with Airtel fellows within those 3 days - but
then thats not Airtel’s problem. They’ cannot bend their rules for you,
they’l say. So what if you’re a customer? Go to hell! Terrific.
You bunk office for the first day stay at home for the Airtel buggers
to turn up and do the needful , but they don’t turn up. You call 121
and hit a stone wall - "Thank you for calling Airtel, you may I assist
you?"...there it ends. What follws is a sham on the name of assistance.
You call in sick on the second day and wait for Airtel again.
Unfortunately, a "technical" snag develops today about which you get
to know only after you’ve run from hell to high water! They dont bother
to inform you - who are dickens are you, anyways? They have loads
of customers to take "care" of.
You are out of sick leaves, so you call in dead the third day. And wait
at home. And as usual, they don’t turn up. You are left wondering what
the hell happened to the 3 day SLA?
That’s Airtel for you. So much for AR rehman and Sachin Tendulkar! I
think there are loads of people like me who are waiting to welcome more
competition in the Indian mobile services market. Mr. Branson, like our
Government, . we too are willing to lay the red carpet for you! Fingers
crossed...