Bad Airtel Customer Service

Recently I had gone on a kshetradanam to South Canara in Karnataka. Unfortunately while staying at Mallige Lodge in Udupi, my Nokia 6600 was stolen from the room.

As soon as I found that the mobile was missing I decided to call the Airtel customer service and block my SIM as well as the IMEI. On a Nokia phone you can find the IMEI number by keying the hash code *#06#.

So I called up Airtel 24 hour customer service number 98450 12345 and was greeted by
a dismembered automated voice response system “Welcome to Airtel customer service, Press 1 if you want in English , 2 for Hindi, 3 for Kannada”.

After 2 more such queries I finally ended up giving my phone number. My request was queued while Rahman tried his best to soothe my nerves with his airtel tunes, the only time I hated listening to AR Rahman’s tune.

I waited on the line for 1 minute, 2 minutes…. 3 minutes…. 5 minutes and finally was disconnected from the line. I tried croaking ‘Hello’ on the phone for sometime before finally deciding that Airtel’s pathetic service would be of no use.

While Airtel’s ads have been boasting of service availability even in remote inaccessible places, its service in urban Bangalore itself is awful. Most of the time the phone calls are disconnected after 1 minute and hasn’t improved even after complaining umpteen times.

Will it ever improve ?