Apr 21, 2009 09:33 AM
2276 Views
Unless you have an insane desire to burn your money and a fetish for heartburns, please donot attempt to buy the DTH services of Airtel.
This has been one of my worst customer experience in recent times. Recently, my husband and I recently moved into our new home and were intent on taking on one of the DishTV packages and had narrowed down to Airtel and Tata sky. We were really kicked about the worldspace services provided by Airtel and decided to go ahead with them, even though we had read about service related issues that Airtel has.
To ignore this was our first big mistake. I am hoping that others would benefit from me sharing this experience. When we went to buy the Airtel package, the sales personnel was all gaga about what a great service provider Airtel was and on so on and even when we mentioned to him that our apartment faced a certain direction, he assured us that this was not a problem and that his technical personnel would be able to "fix" it.
The second mistake was that we never bothered asking him how. Anyway, we also had two TVs and wanted connections to both of these. The sales guy told us that this was not possible without buying 2 separate connections. This amounted to a hefty amount of 6K, but we relented nevertheless. When the technical personnel came home and looked at the wiring and provision for Dish, they confirmed our earlier doubts about the direction of the balcony where we intended to have the dish installed.
They told us that the only way to do this was to install the dish on the terrace of the apartment complex and have the wire hang down all the way to our floor(which was on the 6th floor) and for the other TV in the bedroom, drill in the wall and connect the wiring to the TV. I was aghast at his suggestion especially as it was obvious that we had spent a lot of time and energy doing the interiors of the house. Besides, the guys were in a hurry to leave and claimed that they had already spent a lot of time in our house.
Anyway, the end result of the whole episode was that we sent the guy packing with his dish tvs and told him that we would like to cancel the package. The real nightmare of getting the refund started after this. The very same dealer that we had bought the connection from told us that since there was no problem with signal, we would have to bear the cost of the connection partly. After some very heated arguments, he told us to contact Airtel directly. Of Course, Airtel's front office are some poor call center chappies who have not clue about Airtel's services, let alone technical knowhow.
They told us to go back to the dealer. I remember spending an entire day talking to the guys in the call center, who kept assuring me that someone would get back to me regarding the whole episode. Nothing happened. I even spoke to one of the managers with a very Americanized accent who asked me to calm down(and take a deep breath). The fact of the matter is that Airtel as service providers simply suck. There is no direct interface between the customer and Airtel. Almost 2 months later, after repeated visits to the Airtel dealer showroom, we finally managed to get our refund. Not an easy experience at all.
Meanwhile, we got the Tata sky connection with some great service. Not only where they able to help fix the technical problem , but managed to provide a solution for 2 TVs using a splitter (which made sense in the first place). There was no need to install multiple Dish antennas and also, the technical guys worked closely with the building personnel to arrive at a solution.
The main difference in both the service providers was the way in which one understood the customer situation and looked for solutions to the problem as opposed to saying this is what we provide, take it or leave it. We are very happy with our Tata sky connection and would recommend the same easily to anyone who wants to go in for a dish connection. I was particularly surprised about the service issues with Airtel DTH, because with their broadband services, I have never faced any problems. They have always been prompt at responding to our complaints, service was great and communication to customers have been timely.
