Please see the below correspondence with airtel 121 e-mail helpline. You can escalate and escalate but they won't care.

From: Vivek Mehta
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 12:20 PM
To: '121@in.airtel.com'
Subject: RE: Airtel Broadband/IPTV connection

No response till the second day, even when the acknowledgement mail mentions of a response within 24 hours. What a shame! It seems like there are no bounds of degradation for the Airtel service.
You shouldn’t even expect me to pay you bill for this month.


From: Vivek Mehta
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 4:17 PM
To: '121@in.airtel.com'
Subject: RE: Airtel Broadband/IPTV connection

Hi,

I have received a text message yesterday saying “Kindly note that we have replied to your mail…” whereas I haven’t received anything. Can you forward me the reply again?

Thanks
Vivek

From: Vivek Mehta
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:21 PM
To: '121@in.airtel.com'
Subject: RE: Airtel Broadband/IPTV connection

Hi Again,

The abysmal service of your company (don’t feel like writing just ‘company employees’ this time) has forced me to write to you again.

I had got the IPTV connection (see details below) after writing the below mail by around mid-February. The fact that I was told by your executive that I’ll be getting it within 5 days is a different story but worth mentioning as it’s quite in line with your ever-falling standards of service. You’ll find requests raised by me and further requests asking for updates during that time.

Anyhow last Thursday, the 15 March, exactly a month after the installation, my IPTV set top box stopped working and I immediately called to raise a complaint on your helpline 198. The next day, a guy came to my house to check the box and concurred that it was faulty and needed to be replaced. When? He said by Monday (5 days outage) as Airtel are running short of Set top boxes. I told him that it was unacceptable as I was promised round-the-clock and all-season availability of the services while buying the connection. I called 198 once again and they told me it would be done by Saturday noon. I stayed home till afternoon but nobody turned up. Since then, I have been calling a no. of times and getting a different timeline every time while today, it’s the 6^th day of outage and yet no visibility of when it would be serviced. This is worse than what MTNL /BSNL used to do when they lost many of their customers to private companies like yours.

Now a few questions for you guys:

1. how is it that a company, as huge as Airtel is running short of set top boxes ?
2. are you not taking any new connections as a result of it?
3. why should I pay your freaking bill when I am not getting to use the service for weeks? If I get late in paying one, you charge me with fines, why should you not be fined for harassing your customers like this?
4. what should I tell to my kid who wants to see his cartoon? The story of a how a group of scoundrels dupe people around?

If this is not redressed properly, I will be forced spend some more time to post this correspondence to various consumer forums and it will be your success in turning me from a loyal customer and advocate of your company to a hard critic by your despicable service!

Thanks
Vivek Mehta


From: Vivek Mehta
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 9:50 PM
To: '121@in.airtel.com'
Subject: RE: Airtel Broadband/IPTV connection

Hi,

Thanks for calling me back to apologise as a response of this mail earlier. I understand a few errant employees are a pain to both a company and its customers. I hope you would have taken appropriate action against them and the experience would never be repeated.

Now, I would like to avail a NEW IPTV CONNECTION on my existing DSL line (landline phone no. 47079012). Can you please kick off the process for the same?

Thanks
Vivek Mehta
9717719191

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From: Vivek Mehta
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2011 11:39 PM
To: '121@in.airtel.com'
Subject: Airtel Broadband/IPTV connection

Hi,

I am a user of 2 airtel postpaid corporate connections (9717719191, 9717002102) and a broadband+landline connection (47079012) and have been considerably satisfied with the service. Last month, I decided to buy an Airtel IPTV connection as well and got the contact no. of a sales executive from the Airtel representative who visits my office hoping I could get some corporate offer or at least I could get it done a bit earlier. I needed the connection before the end of the month as I had discontinued using the services of the cable operator. Here's what happened

23/7 - I called the sales rep Neeraj Kumar (98717 94514) and he said the connection would be made in 3 working days, came to my house in the evening and collected the payment through cheque

27/7 - I called up Neeraj to ask about the status and he said it would take one more day

28/7 - 4/8 - I called Neeraj numerous times but he didn’t pick up. Later, he told me there was some technical issue with the work orders and this could take longer. I requested Neeraj to get the work scheduled for any day after the 20^th of July and he said it would be done

4/8 – I called back my cable operator and requested him to extend my subscription by a month and he did it on premium charges

24/8 – I called up Neeraj again to ask about the status and he said it would be done any day now

26/8 – I called him again and he said it’d be done tomorrow

29/8 – I called up Neeraj and when he picked up in the fourth attempt, asked him for the contact of his senior. He gave me the contact no. of Abhishek (9871033144) who asked me for some time to investigate the issue

29/8 evening – Abhishek called me and told that the work order was cancelled due to policy changes and I would need to follow the entire process of filling the form again. I was unhappy about having to issue another cheque and wait for 4 days but agreed.

30/8 – Abhishek told me that the offer I was being given had expired and if I needed an IPTV now, I’d have to buy a new telephone connection and cancel the previous one. This meant changing my no. and virtually informing the whole world. I was very disappointed with the way it was handled by Airtel staff and exasperated with the fact that I couldn’t get the connection even after waiting for so long.

The above is just an excerpt of the conversations – I actually had to talk to a lot more people in Airtel narrating the entire story but for no help.

Can somebody please tell me is this the way a reputed company sells a product to a loyal customer – troubling them for over a month, wasting their money and denying the service in the end? I must confess I would think twice before recommending Airtel to anyone after this experience.


Vivek Mehta