Thread: Airtel DTH service review

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.

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.":nono:

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.

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.

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.

Hi! I am from Bangalore,was a subscriber of Tata Sky from it's very early days.Had no problems with their quality of service or customer care.But due to the below listed reasons,i was tempted for a change:
1.same package cost,much lesser channels compared to other operators.
2.no further expansion possible due to MPEG2 constraint.
3.Other operators (AD) giving the box and installation for free for just paying an annual subscription.
For the above questions-even the TataSky customer care executives had no answer and they promptly agreed about the problems.(Infact,some agreed with me that i can change the operator)
Taking my specific case,
I was in a Rs275/- package ,i was not paying annually,so it would be Rs 3300/- for a year (and the annual costs 3025/-)
+
In my home itself due to renovation and all the dish had got misaligned and also a obstruction had come up at the location.so needed to refix it at some other place at my house.But even for this TataSky takes Rs350/-

Thus my annual cost comes to 3650/- (even if i take ann pack 3375/-).
+Even with this I don't get many of my regional channels,i dont get WM,MGM etc without a addon,ETnow and all not at all added.And there are many other channels we get in the similar prices package of other operators.
+wanted worldspace,though it closed after i purchased

+ Now for just a small difference of rs200/- why not give a try and get more channels,get a MPEG4 box,bigger dish

Even with many bad reviews in many forums,gave it a try ( actually,am not a mittal lover-me don't have any other service of airtel and dislike their kind of monopoly-but here the service was very competitively priced than other operators even BIG Tv,Videocon D2h ,DishTv and even Sun for that matter for a similar package.).

1.Initially,tried to purchase on their website-but alas- i could never place an order due to some technical fault on website.
2.Then made a call to some number they gave for the dealer of my region.called him.he told he would send a rep the same day and never bothered to send.So,me more or less gave up the plan-seeing the state of affairs just for purchasing.
3.Some day,there was a Tv repairer shop in my locality,saw the ad that he was selling it.Then simply asked him if service was available.He was responsive.Actually it was a saturday evening,he asked my pack,called somebosy and booked instantly,got my subscriber number on phone,booked the installation there itself for the next day itself.All this procedure he did it in 30 mins,gave me my subs no. told me that the box would come with the instl team itself and recieved the money.(though me was a bit apprehensive abt giving the money even without a box-but in our locality thankfully we can trust the shopwallahs).

4.By the time i came home i had already received sms for ADTV about my account being recharged for the given amount.And the same night even if my box was not installed I could register to the website and check the balance.It was 3850/- i was very satisfied with the quick operations.

5.Next day was a sunday,so i was not even expecting that instl people would come.But by afternoon,the guy called me and told he was coming.Then they came with a box,dish,white cable.
6.Instl guys were ok,neither very enthusiastic nor irritating.
7.My installation was done on 2nd floor and Tv on ground floor.No problems with permissions as it's our own house.And then guys had no problem with leaving some extra cable.
8.Yes the dish was bigger than tatasky,cable quality was also good -no problem.
9.As soon as installation was over they guy called customer care and activated - i got all the channels and the free topups assured-no issue like many others faced. Instl guys gave a demo,but i must say i stopped them midway -bored.
9.Coming to the box,ya it's a bit eye candy compared to TS but basically the features are same to same.but i don't like the card protruding out at front of the box in the new model.and one addon is the USB port but of no use still.And for people who want a RF cable it doesn't come in the package as in tata sky.No component output - a big minus-why don't they keep it?

10.The remote -yes was very useful,i had to handle three -one for Tv,one for audio system and one for STB.But now can handle all of them in one.The remote is much lighter and classy.

11.Overall interface not much different from TataSky but has more attractive menus and tabs and much faster.

12.Picture quality not any different from TS,but, for audio it really feels better than TS on my audio system.

13.I did like the widget feature very much ,i can now be seeing any other channel and could see my stock market updates on the screen in a small widget window.
Other interactive services are more or less similar to TS.

14.Coming to the defects-
>channel change takes 2-3 secs,not as instantly as TS,yes ADTV people agree on this.This can get into nerves for Channel surfers.
>unlike TS's favourites,ADTV tried to give 4 member favourites,but selecting our favourites and again surfing in it-is not very convinient-one fav was enough

15.As far as CC,i never came to contact them.don;t know how they are and hope not to contact them for next one year

16.Thus,as far as my experience -it is very satisfactory,no problem go for it!