I was a *very* satisfied Airtel broadband customer till I moved house in May this year. To my dismay, I found that I was now in Airtel "no-network" area and would not be able to transfer my broadband connection. (I had moved to one of the fastest growing and most well laid out parts of the city, Airtel connections were available a kilometre from my apartment complex -- but hey -- if Airtel says no-network, then no-network it is).
My "only" choice was to surrender the Airtel connection that I had directly with Airtel, and -- this gets really weird now -- take an Airtel broadband connection through a third person who was also responsible for the intercom of the apartment complex. Hoping to continue my broadband with Airtel, I took on this roundabout connection.
Then began my problems. Aside from the fact that the connection was way way WAY more expensive than getting one directly from Airtel, it was also *extremely* shoddy with HUGE amounts of downtime, *very* poor customer service (from about 11 am to 5 pm, M-F, as opposed to 24*7 with a direct Airtel connection) and extremely s-l-o-w speeds. Work from home was effectively eliminated as an option since Internet was usually down on weekdays or crawled.
Unable to stand it for more than two months, I cancelled this "Airtel-through-a-third-person" connection and, with HUGE apprehensions, applied for a BSNL connection. To my surprise, I submitted the form on a Friday evening, and the ball was set rolling for the connection on Monday. To date, I have been *very* satisified -- good speeds, fantastic uptime, and prompt customer service. Now, when I shift home, I am going to transfer my BSNL connection and not bother with getting back to Airtel any more.
Turns out that I am not the only one to shy away from an "Airtel-through-a-third-person" connection. Others in the apartment either surrender their Airtel connection and go in for BSNL directly, or, after enduring the torture of an "Airtel-through-a-third-person" connection, cancel it and move to BSNL.
So, here's my question -- is BSNL doing some *very* smart marketing here, or is Airtel management pointy haired? In trying to make a quick buck through some dubious third person, Airtel is actively working to LOSE existing customers who would have otherwise been happy to stay on, but now have no plans of returning. Or don't retail customers matter anymore to a company that recently crowed about having a million of them?
It's been the other way around for me here in Delhi. MTNL is the cheapest option but most of the time the phone doesn't work or has a lot of line noise that prevents a stable broadband connection to work effectively. MTNL and the housing society are always at the loggerheads saying that the quality of phone line maintained by each other is poor. The result is people like me (and some other neighbors) who are dissatisfied.
ReplyDeleteAirtel here has taken advantage of the situation. They have, with the permission of the society management, installed new high-quality cabling right up to our door fronts and are now winning new customers. Ever since I got Airtel broadband at home nearly 10 months ago, I have not had a single complaint against them.
@bagoffortune:
ReplyDeleteI was also very happy with Airtel as long as I had a connection directly with them. For some reason, they aren't interested in providing direction connections to my new apartment complex, instead choosing to provide them through a third party with questionable service. My parents have MTNL in Mumbai, the phone lines are good, but broadband is quite unreliable.