Back to Square One

Its irritating that I have to post yet again on the Airtel Blackberry issue that I have been facing. Just when I was happy that its over, they screwed up again. The service is inactive again & I'm back to square one calling the ultra-inefficient Airtel Blackberry support team. I see the same things repeating again:

• The false promises to rectify things in 1 hour, by next day morning etc.,
• The refusal to give their boss's number to whom I want to escalate this matter
  
• Their unfulfilled promises to arrange for a call back with their boss
• Their meaningless 'I understand, sir' lines
• The messy co-ordination between their teams & the stupid calls saying the service is active, when it is actually not

I am tired of this shit! I dont know if I can sue Airtel for all their false promises & meaningless TAT (Turn Around Time) they quote on their call.

UPDATE on Apr 18 2009: Airtel restored the service today after contacting the appellate office again.

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Airtel does its job, Finally!

This is just an update on my previous post. Finally, after many many long conversations, escalation to airtel's appellate office, they have done their job. They have finally moved me to their new offering - BB Personal email plan on Apr 9th (8 days after the request was made!). I guess, the Airtel's BB support team will not forget my conversations with them. They got to remember it, if they are serious about improving their support mechanism.

Here's some free advice from me to airtel:

• Manage Customer Expectations Better: The first mistake from my viewpoint that airtel made is setting wrong expectation that the job will be done in 24 hours. They continued this everytime I made a call, 'It will be done in next few hours, sir', 'It will be done by tomorrow morning, sir', 'It will be done by today evening, sir' etc., Why can't they assess the complexity of the problem at hand & provide a more realistic estimate. Why set false expectation.
• Improve co-ordination within your support team: Everytime I called up, I used to get different response that left me confounded about the status of my request. If this is not enough, there were automated mails reaching me saying the service is 'active', when it actually is not. On top of it, there were weird SMS messages as well.
  
• Improve Technical expertise: Though I do not know much of the background details on this point. 8 days certainly is a very long time to service a simple plan change request. The technical team seems to have struggled in resolving the issue.
• Make your Nodal Officer reachable: Three times I had called up to talk to Airtel's Nodal officer, I had to wait for 5 - 7 minutes listening to an automated message saying 'Your call is important to us'. If it is important, why weren't you picking up the call?? The only response that I received on emailing the Nodal Officer were automated messages saying that the nodal officer will respond shortly, which never happened - so I had to approach the appellate office.
  

The plan itself is a cool one, however, getting there was the most painful part. Airtel's business team is coming up with good offerings, however such bad customer support experience will easily chase away potential customers.

If TRAI comes up with a regulation that the customers should be allowed to retain their mobile numbers when they switch across service providers, it will be great. I would have switched out of airtel to another provider, just because of this terrible support experience that I had to put up with.

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Airtel Blackberry Service Support Sucks!!!

Here I am blogging again after a relatively long pause. But it is not out of joy or enthusiasm that I'm posting this entry. It is rather out of frustration and a need to vent-out my anger that I am doing this. Please don't read this one unless you are terribly bored, coz its a long post of facts jotted down for god knows who!!

For about 5 months now, I have been using the Blackberry Internet service from Airtel on my BB handset. It has been working fine & I was happy, but for the fact that their data plan is not cheap. To minimize the cost, I was limiting myself to only checking/sending emails through this service. Recently, I noticed a new plan from Airtel (Blackberry Personal Email plan) which promised unlimited data at cheaper cost but restricted only to email and instant messaging services. This sounded like a good bargain to meet my requirements.

With that started my endless interactions with the Airtel customer service, especially their ultra-inefficient Blackberry Technical support team.

Interaction#1: Apr-01 Tuesday Morning around 10:09 am
When you call Airtel customer service number, there is no option in their IVR to direct the call to their Blackberry support team. After a long wait, someone informed that I need to call a magic number for Blackberry support!!

Interaction #2: Apr-01 Tuesday Morning around 10:19 am
On calling the magic number, I am told I need to send a mail to get my plan changed & the new plan activated. I am told, once the request is received, the plan change should happen in about 4 hours! Sounds great.

Interaction #3: Apr-01 Tuesday Morning around 10:46 am
Email sent to Airtel Blackberry support service requesting change of plan. Auto acknowledgement received in a few minutes.

Interaction #4: Apr-01 Tuesday evening around 07:58 pm
Email sent to Airtel Blackberry support service asking for the request status. Auto acknowledgement received in a few minutes.

Interaction #5: Apr-01 Tuesday late evening around 23:47
Dialled magic number. Support person informs that the request is already under processing. The old plan is deactivated and the new plan should be active in 15 minutes, after which I'll receive a SMS informing the new plan is active.

A long wait...hoping the service will be active...no SMS until 02:00 am....the handset data service status changes to 'Data Connection Refused'...but the new service plan is still not working....a few switching off and on of the device doesn't help...slept hoping the service should be working by next morning...

A SMS received at 2:32 am stating - Congrats, Airtel Live services are activated. Since your phone does not support download of settings call Airtel Customer service for manual configuration.

Holy crap!!! Its 8:00 am next morning Apr-02 Wednesday, the status is still 'Data Connection Refused'

Interaction #6: Apr-02 Wednesday Morning around 08:29 am
Called the regular Airtel Customer service as per the SMS instruction, after many exchanges - the support person clarifies that 'Airtel Live' is a totally different service, it is not same as the Blackberry service!! (I realized, I had toyed with the 'Airtel Live' icon on my handset last night before sleeping, this must have triggered-off that SMS). Frustration!!

Interaction #7: Apr-02 Wednesday morning around 08:40 am
Called the magic number again, the support person coolly says the plan is not yet activated. He needs to place a request to get it activated. I got more frustrated & reminded him that someone promised that the service should be active in 15 mins last night. He didn't seem to be apologetic about the whole thing. Instead, he pointed out that I had wrongly set up my email accounts in my old plan and that I should have set-up the email accounts through their website. But WTF, how am I supposed to know this 'chidambara ragasiyam' (Big Secret) unless someone from Airtel told me when I first bought the service!!
I demanded to speak to his manager. His supervisor came on line. Apologised & cooled my temper a bit. He promised that the service should be up in 4 hours by 1:00 pm. He gave me a complaint number (for the first time!) & assured that his team will take it as a priority & get it done. Sounded great again!

Apr-02 Wednesday evening 04:40 pm: Received a sms saying my old Blackberry plan has been stopped. But hey, my data service actually stopped last night itself. The 'Data Connection Refused' message is now gone. But the data service indicator has changed from 'edge' to 'GSM'. I just ignored the message & felt somewhat assured that the Airtel technical doing is doing some work on my request!

Interaction #8: Apr-02 Wednesday late evening 22:29 pm
Dialled the magic number again. Asked them what is the status against the complaint number. The support person informed that the new plan has been activated. I told her, but then the data service is still not working on my handset. She requested that I switch off, remove battery..etc., etc., and then it should work. I tried everything..guess what?! Right!, it didn't work.

Interaction #9: Apr-02 Wednesday late evening 23:13 pm
Called up the magic number again. Are the airtel support guys not instructed to talk loud enough? The support person surpised me saying that the request is still under processing. I felt, WTF. She then started explaining,"...we have activated from our end, but the server..." I had to clarify, I dont understand French or Greek. I was thoroughly confused. Are these guys playing some Apr-01 prank on me!!. WTF! WTF! WTF! I had to explain the whole series of my interactions with their support, still no sympathy from her end on my state!
I demanded to speak to her manager. The supervisor comes up on line. But I have run out of patience already...he said "probably by midnight or so" the service should be active. Again, WTF. "Probably?" "Midnight or so"? Do these guys really know what they are doing OR what they are supposed to do ? I demand that I speak to his manager. But luckily his manager isn't available. I asked him for his manager's number, so I could call that number the next morning. He refuses, saying he cannot divulge anyone's personal number. Again, WTF. I clarified that I dont need "personal" number and asked for an "official" number so I can escalate & get my problem resolved. Finally, he gave a Nodal officer's number. When I asked him, by when will the problem be resolved definitely, he said by 11:00 am next morning. I could only laugh.

Apr-02 Wednesday late evening 23:37 pm: I receive an email in response to my very first email, saying the service is activated. I laughed again, because the service is still not active and knew for sure, these guys really dont know what they are doing !!!

Its about 1:00 am now, the service is still not active. God only knows when that will happen. Airtel Blackberry Support team sucks. They suck bigtime & thats what I told them too.

And you know what? Try "Airtel Blackberry customer care" on google & the first link that you get is Airtel Blackberry Complaints. Way to go Airtel!