One Angry AIRTEL Customer

Though Vodafone tops the list for highest number for unattended complaints, if you ask me it would be AIRTEL. I feel CRM is a term which doesn’t exist in the books of AIRTEL. This post is a result of shear frustration of dealing with customer care executives of AIRTEL. Finally I lodged a complaint with CORE (Consumer Online Resource and Empowerment System). This is a site supported by Ministry of Consumer Affairs. I found it to be a very useful site. It’s the JAGO GRAHAK JAGO Campaign initiative. So next time you have a to went your anger and agony you know where to go. BTW I have changed my service provider.
I also found a blog where there was an endless list of consumer grievances related to AIRTEL and other companies.

Highlights of CORE:

• Over 1.4 Crores hits received from 50 countries across the globe on www.core.nic.in till date
• Over 6.8 Lakhs Visits
• July 2008 witnessed 2,98,564 hits, 8,639 visits, 98,765 Page views respectively..
• 16940 Subscribers of CORE Centre E-Newsletter
• More than 1.15 lakhs of web pages of contents of different consumer related issues e.g. Caselaws, Acts, regulations, Gist of Judgments, Test Reports, Consumer Studies, Articles etc. are uploaded on CORE website. Every month’s new pages of contents are being added into CORE website.
• More than 47 Thousand Complaints received from March 2005 to July 2008 from all parts of India and also from abroad
• Total 1372 complaints (25.7% of all complaints handled) were resolved by CORE Centre from April 2008 to July 2008.
• In the month of July 2008 CORE has received 1241 Complaints, in which 440Complaints were resolved.
• Hindi version of CORE Centre website has been launched with selected links. More than 25 thousands hits are being registered per month in the Hindi section of CORE website.
• Arrangements made for more regional languages such as Telgu, Malayalam & Gujarati being added.
  
  My Complaint
  Complaint Id : 5605
  
  1. I was wrongly billed by the service provider on my prepaid card for using VAS downloads 2008. On contacting the customer care executive I came to know that it was for the accessing Internet services. But I had never activated GPRS services on my SIM. I was billed an exorbitant amount of Rs. 555. When I told this to the executive he registered my complaint and told that action will be taken immediately (within 24 hrs). After 2 days I called him again and then he told that he cannot do anything and I will have to go to Airtel Customer Relation Center and reach an executive on the hotline. My complaints were not properly entertained. First executive didn't hear my problem properly. Second one told that I will get my balance in 24 hrs. Till date I have not received a single penny!
  
  2. I had taken a VAS called tuney talk charging Rs. 20 monthly. After a while i wanted to discontinue and deactivated the service. But I am still being charged even after deactivation.
  
  
  My losses:
  - Monetory loss of Rs. 555 + RS. 20 * 4(months)
  
  - Bad response from custoner care executives.
  
  - Was not having any mobile service for 3 days for having no balace in the mobile. Which led to other opportunity costs( I was not able to recieve imp phone calls from my office.).
  
  I have now switched to another service provider. HURRAY!!!
  

It's Ringing in Rural India!

On march 16th finally Vodafone and Essar shook hands. £29,350 billion Vodafone, the largest company in terms of revenue in the mobile space, is planning to move in a big way in rural areas of emerging markets such as India. In the new entity Vodafone will have 52% stake, while Essar continues to hold 33%. There were some issues like Vodafone signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with rival Bharti-Airtel on sharing infrastructure that was not favored by the Essars which was finally sorted out. Vodafone's India-born CEO Arun Sarin was quoted saying:"Our target is to achieve 20-25 percent market share in the coming years from the current 16-18 percent."

Emphasising Vodafone's focus in rolling networks in rural India, Sarin said: "We are likely to invest several billion dollars in networks in India. There's an unmet need in rural India (for mobile telephony)."

So do you think Vodafone will be successful in its rural foray? To read the whole story click here