Nov 18, 2009 03:14 PM
3367 Views
(Updated Nov 18, 2009 04:12 PM)
Airtel the word stood once for service and customer satisfaction. But with the increase in number of subscribers and some more of inflated numbers I guess they are becoming too proud to hear customers views and feedback.
I noticed since almost 6 months I have been raising tickets over tickets to solve billing and GPRS queries. I have lost count of how many I have raised to date over the past few months. I guess even their customer care has lost track for sure now, because every time I call up customer care - I am explaining to them what my problem is. No one notes it properly on my account the first time or clearly explains it in the ticket. I guess with Airtel starting billing at 1 Ps. per sec, their customer care is getting paid at 1ps / hr maybe.
A brief on my problems : I am using my corporate CUG plan with 100 MB free GPRS usage. As soon as I changed to this plan - all my previous online and billing information got lost and I was to start new afresh. Airtel did not have any solution for this.
2 months back since my BSNL broad band was down at home, I decided to use Airtel Internet over the mobile for dial-up internet on my PC. I called up customer care to check what I should do to activate GPRS. I chose the weekly unlimited plan for 140 rs and week. I was told to send a message to activate the same from my Mobile which I promptly did and got a message saying it has been activate (I have it saved on my mobile due to which they have not been able to deny having received it). What I was not told was that I had to deactivate the previous 100 MB free GPRS corporate plan before activating the weekly unlimited Mobile Office pack. Misinformation on part of customer care which Airtel has not acknowledged till date on any of the service requests and complaints from me.
After around 3 weekly of usage I get a call from Airtel Collection saying my bill is around 3500 Rs and since my Credit Limit was only 4900 I had to make a partial payment to continue its service. My normal bill comes to around 1000 Rs on the two number me and wife uses. When I inquired about this, to my shock, I found that Airtel weekly unlimited GPRS pack is not active on my account and I was charged at 10ps/10kb after my default 100 MB free corporate GPRS limit was reached. I called up customer care for my first service request. The person took down all details. The next person calls up to solve the service request and he/she does not have a clue as to what my problem is. I explain the story again. Remark from customer service " you have been correctly charged for GPRS". I am alarmed at such kind of service again from Airtel after my first billing plan change problems.
The next stage is my outgoing calls get debarred while still my service request is open. Collection people call me twice a day asking me to make payment. I am fed up explaining to them and I shoo them away saying go check the service request open. Meanwhile customer care calls several times to close my service request saying the charges are valid as per my usage. Meanwhile some one activates my outgoing taking into consideration my service request. The next day it gets deactivated again. Collection call up asking for payment and I ask them to check my Service request.
They check and confirm that back end tech team has confirmed and closed ticket saying my data usage and said charges are valid. I call up customer care and it is a new service request - I explain everything again and struggle to stay connected over a week without any outgoing. End of the week no resolution, I throw the SIM and opted for a Docomo. I time their introduction of service at 1ps per sec and messaging at 1 re a day amazing and convenient for me. After almost 5 years of postpaid mobile service with Airtel I was pained to see my number being lost. I informed everyone of the change of number.Only my add-on Airtel number with my wife remained.
After a month I am happy using Docomo and was getting over the saga when Airtel legal dept (in fact Collection Dept) calls up my wife stating they are from a Courier Company need my number since they have a undelivered courier. She gives my number and I get a call saying legal dept. I again have the long task of explaining details of the above said story which the guy has no clue about. He called up to harass me to settle for something and close the collection. I say I can settle for maybe half the bill which is what I have calculated to be the actual if Airtel had billed me correctly. I am told I can keep the number also. The collection person says he will call back in 5 mins. I get a call after 2 days from another person by name Vinay from Collections dept again bargaining to settle for 1800 Rs. By this time the bill has got all rental, charged even while I have not used along with ad-don number up to 5000 Rs (Also now they have Airtel Mobile Office I wanted also charged when I was not using).
This included tax, late payment and all sort of charges one would never see normally on the account. I agreed to settle for an amount of Rs 2, 700 for two months on both the numbers. Also I get to retain my number and add-on numbers. Promptly, the person by name Vinay called me and fixed an appointment to collect payment. I paid the money the second day. After this came the nasty surprise - there is no effective waiver or adjustment done on my bill. Only the 2700Rs got credited against the 5000Rs. As of date I still have outstanding balance of more that 3000Rs. The person by name Vinay does not answer my calls. He picks when called from an unknown number and agrees to sort it out or sometimes call back since he is in a meeting. As of today - I made a last call from yet another unknown number and he said he was in meetings through out and will rectify my billing. His details are below :
vinay - e-mail - core@rocketmail.com (is this what a corporate customer care email id looks like? P / Mobile +91 9945196667.
But as of today - I decided no more of Airtel. Docomo with its pros and cons were more easy to live on. I can even switch to any service provider anytime. May we are lucky one day that number portablity as in many other countries will also be implemented by TRAI in India.
I have similar bad feedback with many of my friends who use Airtel and most of them cannot believe Airtel is really going to the rocks. They stick on with only hopes of improvement. I still remember when the 1ps /sec billing came Airtel made something of a statement like "We don't react to the price war, ours is based on strategy" - management PR mumbo jumbo. A weeks down the lane - I see they also have introduced the same pricing.
Thanx! to all who read this long review of mine! Even I did not want to do this, I thought the company will do something. With such a customer experience with Airtel I might as well be with any other service provider. Airtel might have been a great service once upon a time. Truth is it is no more now. Nothing can be done anymore to change my understanding.
