Monday, June 30, 2008

Service- What's that?

Am a Airtel mobile phone service subscriber. Airtel supposedly is India's biggest mobile service provider. I recently received a SMS from Airtel detailing their broadband offer. The SMS said I should call xyz Airtel number to get more details. I thought it was high time we had broadband at home and decided to call.
The lady who took the call could not quite speak English. Its is a little difficult to communicate when someone is weak in English and hardly speaks my preferred "service" language - Hindi. She wanted my name, cell number and address to proceed. When asked about the documentation required for the broadband connection she transfered me to her sales department. The transfer took about a minute and a half where I had to give my name, cell number and address AGAIN to proceed. I was promised a person would be at my house at 5 pm the same day.

What I found wrong with this experience:
1) Why are people in a position to answer your call when they cant communicate? Not speak English but communicate.
2) When I am a Airtel subscriber and get a SMS FROM Airtel I expect them to know who is calling. Why the hell should I have to give my details all over again?
3) Why does not the person picking up the phone have all details? Why am I put on hold, transfered to another dept. where I furnish all my details again?
4) Why was I not informed that this was not a toll free number? Neither in the SMS or by the person picking up the phone.

Total time spent on the call: 9 mins 38 seconds
End of the day: The Airtel guy never showed up.

8 comments:

Archana Narayan said...

I have had several bad experiences with Airtel. To share a few:
1. Three different service staff gave me three different rates when I inquired for a new product.
2. They always need more forms filled and submitted after you have submitted everything they asked for the first time.
3. They also need a firing and a threat before things actually happen. They never deliver on time.

What I find more irritating is, because of an issue I will be all worked up, but I because I speak to a different person all the time, it is difficult to just scream!! Like you mentioned, you give all the details over and over again and then you are just so tired, u give up. In my case, I ask my hubby to do the screaming and escalation. Only then does work get done...

I had requested a shifting request to both Airtel and Tata Sky. I was extremely surprised when Tata Sky shifting happen on the time promised with absolutely no hic ups. Now, thats what I call good service...

Satyajit said...

Remember this, Airtel is one of the better service providers. You have never dealt with Idea have you? You wanna put someones head through a wall when you deal with them.

ripul said...

Apart from the one million really bad experiences with every service provider, I had some good experiences with Tata Sky. They arrived on time, with right equipment, professional, and courteous. I would have wanted, however, if their channels offer better clarity... they are no way DVD quality -- at best they are VCD quality.

ripul said...

Ah forgot the epitome of bad customer experience -- ICICI Bank. You cannot get anything done at any point of time in any which way, period. With each interaction with the bank, a part of my soul dies -- now there is nothing left.

It is as if the a dementor has sucked the soul out of you. But, ICICI is way ahead, its Lord Voldemort, the dark lord.

Satyajit said...

ICICI is the Darth Vader of our universe...I think we are talking about companies that we still have hope will improve. ICICI is way way beyond that.

Puma said...

Dealing with any of these companies and yes ICICI is the biggest pimp is kinda like guy on guy action...

U enter thinking "IT IS SEX AFTER ALL" but the whole event leaves a bad taste in your mouth and a really bad pain in the ass and you wonder was i better of without it???

ripul said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ripul said...

Here is my story about how irresponsible Iomega India customer service is and how badly the products are designed:

Iomega StorCenter 1Tb 150d is pathetic - don't buy