I write this in disgust. I felt like an idiot when I had walked into the Bangalore – Indranagar relationship center next to Adidas showroom.
My blackberry service was disconnected without prior notice while I was on roaming [April 17]. I did not call the customer care immediately as I had bitter experience on the incompetent and misleading advice and did not want to waste money while on these stupid suggestions while roaming.
When I got back to Bangalore I had sent the message for activation PNP 8520 to 121 assuming that there might have been a clogged network and might have got disconnected due to some failure. But to my surprise a message returned stating that there already a request in progress and I will have to wait. So I did for a day.
When nothing resolved I tried the blackberry helpline 7070. Where they told me these exact same words.. ” You will have to make edge to capitals sir to get it working “. Now I know that edge has to be caps if the data service has to work, I had called her to find out why and she gives me back the same problem that I told her. I had to follow her useless steps of switching off my handset and removing the SIM and battery leave it for 3 mins and then putting all this back and restarting it. And for no reason I did this. It still dint work.
I tried calling another person and he says to me that my BB service is active and I need to call the GPRS helpline who will then deactivate my GPRS and send me a new GPRS setting and within 4 working hours my service will be up and running. So I did call the GPRS helpline only to know that another clown was waiting there to read some steps out from a book in his mother tongue influenced English accent. And all the options and steps he was telling was for a phone other than blackberry. So I had to shake him up from his sleep and remind him my entire tragic story emphasising the fact that I own a Blackberry handset. Then he immediately had one response for me. “Please call 7070″, wow ! Now I felt like an dumb person who cant communicate, I had clearly told him that the airtel bb helpline had directed me to him. So now he puts me on to his supervisor, who again has no clue. Again a dead end.
My calls continue, I try all possible methods suggested by various incompetent AIRTEL service team. Finally I made it to the relationship center at Indranagar Bangalore on Friday April 23 2010.
There is this dedicated person for Blackbery customers, If anyone is from Bangalore and been to this center you will notice this person who wears a french Beard well groomed person. Well nothing much said, please beware of this person! He is the most cunning and zero trustworthy person whom I have ever come across.
I had patiently explained all my problem to him. He listened to me, made me comfortable, walked to one of the billing agent [Preeti], whispered something and told me that she would address my issue. I walked to her with all hopes. Hoping that she already knew my problems, I keep myself brief and told her that my BB service is deactive. She had a simple answer for me… ” We have withdrawn the service for prepaid customers” that puzzled me cos I had spoken to atleast 20 customer service agents who never told me this. So I asked her who decided that and why was it not notified, for that she told me that she does not know and all that she knows it that the service has been withdrawn. I told her that I know another person who has a prepaid number and is not facing the issue, for that she said that for some numbers they have not withdrawn, now thats ridiculous. So I asked her why it has been withdrawn, she says there are technical issues. So I ask her to give me the data that justifies her comment, she immediately picks up the phone and dials some number and told me that she will put me with a person who can answer my question, now why do I have to do that. Anyways she did not dial a valid number that i could see, she pretended to talk to someone and just hung up by telling me that since my balance was not cut I should be happy cos there are customers whose balance was cut. Thats not a relevant answer.
I would not blame her completely, the bearded man had instructed her to say so, but thats not how you treat a customer.
I walked out and called the customer care again to find out whether they have any news of the withdrawal of the service from the prepaid customers. They did not know of any.
I am using this Airtel connection for the Past 2 years, faced hardships like this before, incompetent call center agents, bad service etc but never had to feel like an Idiot like this. This has made me rethink about the Service provider.
Well my calling continued and finally it stands at a state where one woman has taken my complaint and assured me that the issue will be resolved by April 27 2010. Which I dont believe.
Whether or not the BB service is back and running on my phone, I have decided to exhaust the balance in my phone by the end of this month. I will starting my relationship with a better service provider who will offer me the same service.