Jul 23, 2024 04:03 PM
1523 Views
(Updated Jul 23, 2024 04:05 PM)
Why I punished Airtel
I held an Airtel postpaid account for about two years, but recently, I ported my account to Jio and also decided to punish Airtel as hard within my power as possible. This punishment included that I would:
1. Not do business with them for at least ten years,
2. Not buy Airtel stocks directly,
3. Not recommend anyone to work for that company,
4. Not recommend their product and services to anyone,
5. Post on social media about what happened.
I informed them that I would be rendering them this punishment. They did not do anything to remedy the situation.
In determining this punishment, I was, of course, the judge, jury, and the jailer(which, as a consumer, is my right).
I bought an international calling package from Airtel for my trip abroad to three countries. The package did not work for 28 out of 31 days. It worked for the first three days in the first two countries I visited. In the third country, where I spent most of my time, the package did not work. Airtel’s customer service is available primarily through their App. This App makes sure that you can never reach out to a human. No technical support was readily available. By the time I returned to India about two and a half months later, they had accumulated my charges to over Rs 10, 000(because I did not renew the pack for the second month and did not turn off the phone). All these charges were due to whatever my phone might have done in the background because the data connection speed was as good as nil.
If Airtel had given me a prorated refund for 28 of 31 days, I would have been satisfied and willing to pay the rest of the bill, but they did not. They gave me an unexplained discount of about Rs 1400, which reduced my bill slightly. However, this dispute was not the primary reason I gave them the above punishment. The reasons for this punishment are below:
1. Airtel’s customer service was not reachable by phone or in person.
2. Even by email, they never gave me the impression that they intended to address my concerns.
3. The chat box available with the Airtel Thanks app has no intelligence. Its question-and-answer abilities are worse than those of this class of apps available in 1990. Its purpose seems to be to frustrate the customer and send them back.
4. Even two trips to their local office made no difference. They just referred me to an email address displayed on the office wall.
5. Whenever they sent me an email, they shamelessly asked me to rate my satisfaction with their service. Their system seems to encourage closing a customer service ticket as soon as possible without worrying about whether the problem is solved.
6. After I requested that they port my number to Jio, their sales department went into a frenzy and called me about five times to retain me. I had to rebuke them to stop calling me.
7. As a parting gift, they slapped me a bill of another Rs 700. This amount was more than my monthly postpaid charges. I was so frustrated that I did not even bother asking them what the extra charges were.
It seems that Airtel does not care about solving customers' problems. I must add that I had a postpaid account with Airtel and expected a higher level of service from them.
