Totally depressing experience with my favourite Airtel

Today I want to share the unpleasant experience I had with Airtel digital TV. I am a happy broadband customer, the technology Airtel offers for DTH is good and so is the advertising. These factors made me to go for Airtel’s DTH service inspite of having Tata Sky dish installed for my building.

Saturday 26^th September 2009 5pm.

I paid Rs.4850 for the installation and one years rent for the entire package.

Saturday 26^th September 2009 5.30 pm

Called up the customer care on 1800 102 8080 and fixed the time for installation of the equipment next day at 10am on Sunday 27^th September 2009.

Now the fun started.

Sunday 27^th September 2009 11.30 am

Waited till 11.30am for the installation guy. But neither did he come nor did he or Airtel have the courtesy of calling me to inform that he wasn’t available. I called the customer care yet again. The customer care guy admitted that he did not have any updates but requested me to wait for till 1pm.

Sunday 27^th September 2009 1.30 pm

After waiting till 1.30 I called the customer care yet again and insisted on logging a complaint. I was given a complaint # 1122855.

Sunday 27^th September 2009 2.30 pm

I got a call from someone from Airtel asking about the complaint. I narrated the entire episode to him and he assured that he will arrange for some engineer to come by 5pm.

Sunday 27^th September 2009 2.45 pm

I get an SMS from Airtel mentioning that complaint is resolved!

Sunday 27^th September 2009 5.15 pm

Since no one from Airtel came I yet again called up the call centre. I also mentioned that the complaint be reopened because the issue was not resolved. But the customer care guy did not have the authority and he would not let me contact his superior. He refused to give the contact number of his superior. Airtel is planning for a disaster if they keep this attitude.

Sunday 27^th September 2009 5.20 pm

From an acquaintance I got the number of a person named Shankar. This guy has been outsourced by Airtel to carry out installations in my area. I spoke to him and he assured that the work will be completed that evening positively. He also assured that he will call me again in 10 minutes. He never called.

Sunday 27^th September 2009 7.00 pm

I again call up Shankar and ask him. He says the engineer is not reachable and that the work would be done the next day Monday at 10 am.

Sunday 27^th September 2009 7.15 pm

I call the customer care but surprisingly whenever I used to select the option # 3 for scheduling installation a recorded voice would thank me for calling Airtel and the line would get disconnected! That’s customer care for you.

I give up at 8pm

Monday 28^th September 2009 10.15 am

I call the customer care and narrate the entire episode and raise another complaint (#1126737). I also manage to persuade the customer care guy to transfer the line to some one senior. He transfers the line to a lady who introduces herself as the floor manager. I narrate the entire episode to her and she gives me the number of the Pune territory manager.

Monday 28^th September 2009 10.20 am

The territory manager assures me of sending an engineer.

Monday 28^th September 2009 10.40 am

I get a call from a person (Vijay) who says he is at Swargate and will come and do the installation in 30 minutes.

Monday 28^th September 2009 11.45 am

The same person calls and says that he is at Shivajinagar and he has started.

Monday 28^th September 2009 11.45 am

Ultimately he came at 12.15pm and the work started by scouting for a suitable location to mount the dish. One location was finalized but had to be abandoned ‘cos they damaged the grouting bolt in one of the holes. They diddn’t even have the right tools. Then there was a dispute as they weren’t ready to route the cable through the existing casing capping. As per them their task was to “just install” – meaning they would only mount the dish and connect the cable to ensure a good picture. That’s all! How the cable was to be routed was beyond their brief. If this really the case then why isn’t this told to the customer? But I doubt if Airtel would make such a mistake. Usually it is the last mile operator who makes his own rules.

Monday 28^th September 2009 2.30 pm

Atlast everything installed and working to satisfaction. The picture quality calmed me down and the engineer was good enough to explain to me how the remote was to be operated.

Monday 28^th September 2009 11.45 am

I got a call from someone by the name Prashant. He was in a tearing hurry and asked me if the installation was completed. Since I wanted some other information regarding care of the dish and some other stuff he wasn’t listening. He only listened to what he wanted and cut the call. I got a SMS soon declaring that my complaint was resolved!

Throughout this episode, I have made the following observations:

• The customer care guys and the floor manager of the customer care in the call center were courteous and polite in their replies. But they did not have any knowledge of what was happening and what was the status of my request.

• The outsourced vendor (Shankar) also did not know who was attending my request/complaint. He kept on giving false assurances to me.

• The territory manager had to take time to look into this issue. It was his response on a holiday that set things rolling. Though he responded positively he would not have had to waste his time and effort, had others down the line done their work.

• Airtel has to give an opportunity to the customers to be able to escalate the issue if it is left unfinished. They need not give out phone numbers but they need to have a facility to transfer the phone to someone in Airtel who would have the authority to take decisions.

• The most bitter part was getting the SMS saying complaint is resolved without anyone actually resolving it. The person who sent the SMS probably had his Key Performance indicator (KPI) as the complaint resolution time. So he took the easiest way out by calling me and marking the complaint as resolved without completing the task. This amounts to loss of trust. I never expected this from a company like Airtel. Logically a complaint ought to be marked as resolved only when the customer signs off as resolved. If Airtel has a process that says that the complaint can be marked as resolved as soon as a call is made to customer irrespective of the fact that the issue persists, then the process is wrong.

• The persons or agencies to whom Airtel has outsourced their installation activities appeared to be very casual in their approach. But I would blame Airtel for not being able to get the right feedback about these agencies from the customer. Or maybe this is the best that Airtel got from the available set of agencies.

• If such things continue an excellent product would get killed. It would be most unfortunate.

Update on 12th October 2009
All said and done the picture quality is superb. One word of caution though - IBN Lokmat and Zee 24 Taas these two Marathi channels are not part of the Airtel bouquet. This means I am losing on my language channels. That's sad .... What is even more puzzling is that IBN Lokmat is a free to air channel. Yet we are supposed to take it as a top up. TRAI are you listening??

Update on 26th Jan 2010:
IBN Lokmat is now available, but Zee 24 Taas still isn't