Airtel Customer Care Support OR Customer Misguide. Review on Airtel Mobile Operator

Does Airtel a right choice? Does Airtel care for customer? Does Airtel customer care executive provide right information? Are their promises liable? These questions encourage me to look for other service providers.

I am having an Airtel prepaid connection since August 2005. I took this connection in bundle offer with Nokia 1100. It was working nice till I was recharging with normal available denominations with out going in deep about special offers. My nightmare started after assisting a customer care executive for special denomination recharge.

I thought of recharging with Rs. 1102/- (a normal denomination with special offer of Rs. 0/- processing fee for Easy recharge or E-net recharge, as per the Airtel Customer Care Executive) to get special benefit. Before recharging, I called up (1st Feb 2006, between 10 to 12 am) Customer Care and confirmed about this offer. She confirmed that I can go with recharge option to get benefit of Rs 0/- processing fee for more than Rs. 1000/-. I also confirmed that I would get the same offer if I recharge through net.

On recharging with Rs. 1102/-, I got only Rs 875/- talktime instead of Rs. 1000/- !! I called up customer care again (1st Feb 2006, 3,30 p.m.) and inquired to look into the matter. Mr. Amjad Khan, a customer care executive, assured me that with in 24 hours issue will be resolved and if a customer care executive had confirmed about offer then I would get my Rs. 125/- as credit. I asked him, if he is not sure of resolving this issue give my money back and I will recharge with normal denomination I was used to with. With full confidence he assured me that I won’t loose my money. So I put faith in him and wait for a day. (A big mistake.)

I didn’t get any information from Airtel even after 24 hours.

I called customer care (2nd Feb 2006, around 5 pm) again to know the status of my complaint. I talked with Mr. Rohit, another customer care executive. He asked me to wait for about 4 – 5 hours as they are working on it and it will be resolved.

No message from Airtel till 3rd Feb 2006, 1.00 pm. (Already 48 hours gone).

So I again called customer care and talked with Ms. Uma. She sticked to her argument that it is not possible through internet banking recharge to waive off the processing fee. Surprised by contradicting statement from two executives of the same organization for there product. I told her that I got this information from one of your executives only, but she was not ready to listen for that. After a long argument she passed the line to her superviser Ms. Preethi. I need to explain the same thing to her again. She was asking to whom I had a talk. I remember her name as Vrinda (the first customer care executive who gave me the information of this Rs 1102/- recharge) so I told her that I didn’t remember her name exactly but mostly it was Vrinda. Then Ms. Preethi told that no one of such name is there? (So one has to keep record of to whom he / she had a talk and at what time?) First she was not ready to believe that I had a talk with customer care executive at all! Then while talking suddenly she could not hear my voice (though I was able to hear her voice clearly) and she hanged up the phone with out resolving the issue. (Is this the approach Airtel believe in? Really a shameful approach in this competitive world.)

I wait for half an hour for Ms. Preethi to call back to resolve this issue. She didn’t call back again. So I called up customer care again and asked the executive to join me Ms. Preethi or Ms. Uma so I can directly talk to them and could get the fastest solution. The executive at desk (I forgot his name) very arrogantly told that it would not be possible for him to connect either of the one as it was not permissible to him! (One executive can able to connect supervisor and the other can’t?). So I asked him to pass message to Ms. Preethi to give me a call for the solution. He agreed on that!!

I waited for another hour. No one turned up, no message from Airtel either. So once again I called customer care at around 3.30 pm. Ms. Shailaja, another customer care executive, picked up. I put a message again for Ms. Preethi to give me a call with solution. Ms. Shailaja confirmed that she would pass this message to Ms. Preethi and Ms. Preethi would call me in an hour time. Ms. Preethi never turned up again!

I called customer care again around 5.00 pm. Ms. Laxmi attended the call. She told that being in bundle offer I can’t get processing fee waived off at all! (A new resolution from Airtel). I told her that this information was given to me by one of the customer care executive only. So she apologized for wrong information passed but not ready to credit the amount I loose due to wrong information given to me. I asked her to put this issue to the management to review as I am not ready to bear loss due to wrong information passed to me. She promised me that with in 2 hours issue would be solved and someone from Airtel would call me. No one called me yet!

Same story was repeated by Mr. Shivprasad, Mr. Harish, Mr. Satish and Mr. Harish when I called customer care again on 3rd Feb 2006 and 4th Feb 2006 at 7.20 pm, 7.40 pm, 7.15 pm and 7.40 pm respectively.

I wrote to customer care the same but didn't got any reply.??????