Butter Biscuits Door Delivered from Airtel

A couple of weeks ago I shifted my production unit from the heart of the city to the outskirts (in the hope that moving closer to a large bus terminal will make it easier to recruit tailors). A week before the move I called Airtel to tell them that I would need my landline and broadband connection shifted to the new office. I asked how long the entire process takes (from disconnecting the old landline and setting up the new one) and I was pleasantly surprised when they said it can be done on the same day. I made a request for that day to be Saturday, the day of our move. Incidentally if you call Airtel’s toll free number to ask for a shift in location they ask you to call their landline service centre (044-42112345) that isn’t toll free unless you are calling from an Airtel landline.

On Friday my old landline got disconnected. I called Airtel and Kavitha, at their office, said that this could not have been avoided. I asked to speak to her supervisor, and Kavitha replied confidently saying her supervisor would say the same thing. She also said her supervisor would call me back in 10 minutes, but no one called back from Airtel that day. The next day I was busy with my move, but I got a call on my cell phone from a technician asking me when he could come to the new place to connect my new landline. I asked him to come to the new address that afternoon but he did a no-show. I called back but no one picked up. I called the Airtel helpline number and no one picked that up either. All day on Saturday, Sunday and on Monday (Diwali) no one picked up either phones. On Tuesday morning I called the Airtel helpline again. This time Diana picked up and said my new connection would be fixed the same day. I asked to speak to her supervisor but she insisted that she could handle my problem and would not transfer me to her supervisor. Annoyed and worried that my complaint was not really registered, I called back a couple of hours later. This time I spoke to Zia who assured me that it would be done by the end of the day. I warned him that the office closed at 6pm so a technician had to start his work at the office before that. By 5:45pm, no one had arrived. I called Airtel and spoke to Karthik and then Selvakumar. Neither of them were able to pull up my complaints on their computer. In other words, there was no complaint registered with them that I needed this connection done as soon as possible. Finally one of them agreed to transfer me to their supervisor, Lakshmi. She assured me that they were going to treat this as a priority and that the new connection would be completed the next day morning.

By this time I was frustrated, but more than anything else I was just irritated! All those calls (that I was obviously charged for since I couldn't make them from my not-yet-connected landline) and all that time being asked to stay on hold had still not resulted in a registered complaint! The next morning no one arrived. I called back and spoke to Vasanth, then Gopinath, Dilip and finally Preethi. They all said it would be done by the end of the day. I decided to just wait until the job was done but also sent in a complaint via email to Airtel to the following addresses:
care.tamilnadu@airteltelephone.com
Nodal.TN@airtel.in
nodal.southabts@airtel.in

I didn’t hear back from anyone via email other than the auto response saying my complaint would be attended to within 24 working hours (does that mean 4 days of 8 hours each?) Meanwhile a technician came to fix my landline on Wednesday and my internet connection was fixed only on Friday, a week after my old line had been disconnected.

The following Monday I received a tin of Butter Biscuits (made from margarine) from Airtel. There was no note or letter, so I assume that this is their way of responding to my complaint. I wish there was a way I could tell them (and have them register what I want to say) that refunding someone’s phone bill might melt their frustration away a lot more effectively than margarine.