India Broadband Forum

shinelagoon

Hi all,

This is me Vibhor Goyel from Noida (airtel dth customer i.d no.- 3001640031). i was living in UK from quite a long time and came back now to India for good about a few weeks back. I immediately bought the airtel dth service as i already had used their mobile and broadband services previously and was pretty much satisfied that time.

I took north mega pack for 4350/- on 8/10/09 and asked the sales advisor to suggest me the procedure to take another connection on my second tv. He said me to deposit 1750/- as activation charges and then to buy some recharge value for 160/- monthly flat rate price for the second tv (multi tv). I did the same and bought a recharge value of about 1000/-. I have done all these transactions online.

Well the technicians came after two days and installed the stb+ dish on both of my tv's. The dth service started working immediately. But soon i realized that a few channels were not coming on my second tv, which were supposed to come under the north mega pack. I checked my airtel account and found that they have given me the wrong tv package (economy pack) on second tv. I called to customer services and they assured me that this issue will be resolved within the next 24 hours.
Nothing was done even after waiting for about 48 hours, and my agony started from that very moment. Call after call i have made since that time till today, speaking to really pathetic english speaking customer advisors. Not one or two but about seven in a row all struggling in understanding OR to made me understand what they wanna say. Explaining my case again and again from scratch to each and every one, whosoever coming on the other side. Like they don't believe at all to maintain some kind of customer notes on their system (which is a standard practice within all call centers all over world) so as to avoid any kind of customer harassment, if he/ she calls for the same issue any time in future.

In the mean time while using their services i found some really serious probs, like

- the stb (set top box) is so slow that it takes about 4-5 seconds every time to switch to the next channel, and on some channels even more...... so much irritating.
- most of the times, a number of channels keeps on getting off and on. Message comes on screen 'you are not subscribed to this channel' . And after few hours or a day these channels starts coming automatically.
- A few channels like sahara one freezes in between for about 7-8 seconds every few minutes.
- The stb hangs quite frequently if i try to play any channel (which is suppose to come) but somehow if at that time its not coming. All the remote keys stop working at that moment. Even you can't switch off the stb from your remote, and finally i have to kill the stb by switching it off from power and then switching it back again. Now wait for another 3-4 minutes to let it reboot itself.
- 6 out of 10 airtel live services doesn't work all the time.
- most seriously what i have seen is that most of the dth service providers (incl. airtel) in India are not providing HDMI slot in their stb, which means no use of spending good money on brilliant LCD tv's when they can't even get a decent good signal out of the stb. The impact can easily be seen on a 52" like big screen LCD tv's. The picture doesn't show good detail due to the raw processing of signals through the age old composite slot in the new generation tv's. I can trace the difference easily coz I was using the virgin digital tv service in UK on my LCD with flawless video picture quality .

Realizing and noticing all these faults during the initial few days after getting my new dth connection from airtel, i kept calling them everyday and explaining my situation every time to the useless customer advisors. Every-time they apologize and said sorry. Like these are the best words they have on offer, except any relevant SOLUTION.

During the last 12 days or so, I have already spoken to 9 customer advisors, 4 floor supervisors (Roshni, Avinaash, Benjamin, Puneet), 1 customer retention member (sandeep), 2 technical engineers at different times. At each occasion they have booked my complaint for
- wrong channel package running on my second tv (muti-tv) connection.
- stb hang problem and other technical faults.

Each time I have been given different complaint numbers and also the time slot, mostly the next day for engineer visit at my home.
Each time i waited for the engineer to come, and on one occasion the engineer called me at some awkward time to ask if he can come now. I had no other option but to say him NO as i wasn't at home that time and he hung up the call after saying that 'no problems, i'll call you again tomorrow to re-schedule my visit'. No call he made after that. And to my surprise the next day the customer advisor told me, their system is showing that my issue has been fully resolved. Even i got the same sms on my registered mobile phone no. as well.

Once again i got a call from an engineer after speaking and explaining my situation to one customer retention team member (sandeep) when i made a request for disconnection and refund. The engineer said that he is coming within the next half an hour, but again he didn't turned up. I received the same sms the next day that my issue has been fully resolved.

I explained this cheat to one new floor supervisor (puneet) in the morning today, he assured me once again that the engineer will visit by tomorrow, i.e. 21/10/09 mor., but to my surprise i have again received an sms just now (at 21:00) that the issue has been fully resolved.

I spoke to one new customer advisor and asked about my previously made request about a week back to discontinue with services/ refund of my full money due to lack of customer services and wrong behavior on behalf of airtel and he said that my request is still open. Also that they have got no policy to refund back the money.

I don't know what to do. I am pretty much frustrated and tired now.

diwakar

I totally agree with shinelagoon.I too am faced with a similar situation.I have taken two multiroom connections(total 3 connections) with the same ID Nos.Two of them are working well,but the third one i get this message that i have not subscribed to any of the channels(ERROR Code 4) and hence i cant view any channel.Just like my friend i have called airtel (about 15 times now)and it is the same response that shinelagoon described.As the other two stb,s are working i am being charged for all of them(including the one that is not working)This has been going on for about a month now and i have been charged as the account is a single one with the same ID.THESE PEOPLE ARE CHEATS.My explanations that since the other two are working and there is adequate balance in my account are all accepted by the call centre people.But they have not corrected the problem and worse still everytime i make a fresh call,the response is "THE MATTER HAS BEEN RESOLVED".They are not only cheats but LIARS as well.
I am faced with a situation since ihave a balance for another 2 months i cant even discontinue as they will not refund."It IRKS me when i read that they have been awarded the best dth provider."

neo001

Seems you have a bad and frustrating experience with with Airtel customer service, in last 12 days you have spoken to so many Customer care executive and still problem not solved.

Unregistered

Date: 8th Nov, 2009

Problem:1>
It took 57 minutest to get in touch with Customer Service Center Phone number.
Moreover, the executives and their system is so dull that to submit my installation request, they too 23 minutes of my time.

Problem:2>
In last 4 days, I submitted 5 requests/compalints for getting my Airtel DTH Installation with Customer Service number. But, no intallation is done till today.
Everytime they promise, the fail to deliver.

This is worstever service experience I ever had with Airtel.

My Account number and details are:
A/c no: 3001994029
Purchase Bill Date: 1st Nov, 2009
Strong recommendation do not opt for Airtel DTH for such a pathetice service.

abhikaushikin

Yes you are right. Same thing happened with me also. But keep calling them and have patience. It took 24 days for me to get my problems solved.
Nothing is good about Airtel DTH (quality, customer care).
So guys dont go for it.