My Airtel GPRS (2G) was down for a day or, so. And, the Customer Service folks sent over the following details:

• Please go to Menu
• Click Settings 
• Click Configuration 
• Click Personal configuration settings 
• Click Add - Select Web 
• Account name Mobile Office 
• Homepage http://www.google.com 
• Username blank 
• Password blank 
• Use preferred access point No 
• Select - Access point settings Proxy 
• Enable Proxy address 202.056.231.117
• Proxy Port no 9201 or 8080 
• Data Bearer Select GPRS Select - Bearer settings
• GPRS Access Point airtelgprs.com 
• Authentication Normal 
• Username blank 
• Password blank 
• Back to Personal account menu 
• Select Options - Activate 
• For any online technical assistance for GPRS, you may also contact customer care at 12118 (chargeable at 50 paisa for 3 minutes) from an alternate airtel number.

Sometimes I wonder if the companies and brands really understand what it means when they don't seem to listen and just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. A recent example could be my interaction with these folks. Someone is surely not reading the content and just responding for politeness's sake.

An even recent example would be the conversation with the Airtel Digital TV folks I had yesterday. All I needed was to check up why it was taking more than 4 days to add a channel to my package inspite of using approved text messages and, while I was at it, I needed to add two more channels. It took me a sum total of 25 minutes with 15 of them "on hold" listening to either "your call is very important to us" or, the funky hold music. The problem that I see is that if you are telling for 10 minutes that "your call is very important to us" and yet not putting a human on the other end, then you have an issue with how important the call is. And, repeating that mantra time and time again without actually demonstrating to the customer (remember this is a phone - the customer has no way of knowing whether you've just put him/her on hold and decided to trim your moustache/file your nails) that there are events happening is a bad way of handling calls.

Providing the customer with an option to disconnect the call with an option for a charged call back might actually be something that is preferable than being on hold watching paint dry.

There are times when I feel that all I do is write about my sad and sometimes depressing experiences with various online retailers, service providers and so forth. But then these days I read so much around these themes on twitter and other blogs that I guess I've been fairly lucky in not having that amount of pain.

The recent situation with Airtel DTH is of course in that "too hilarious to pass up" domain.

Sometime around 19Nov2010 the reception at the house ended up being borked. I had a blank/black screen but could navigate through the Set Top Box options using the menu. The signal did return after half an hour but then again it went off for a while. I duly called in the customer care to ask for the reason and since they told that they'd look into it, I dropped a mail to the appropriate address. In a while I received a call from the Field/Service Engineer stating that the disruption was "due to a software upgrade required for the new Airtel logo and this would take around 4 days to get fixed" and, he "doesn't feel that it is required to visit the premises". The fun started from there.

The next day I received a call from the customer care stating that the engineer was unable to contact me. Since I had the number of the engineer stored, I called back and asked about this funny statement given that we did talk on the previous day. The gentleman was kind enough to listen to me and quickly disconnect. As this line of reasoning appeared funny to me, I wrote to the customer care again. This time I asked them to confirm the statement of the engineer and whether indeed it did not require a site visit. The response was via phone and was assured that they will get the engineer to visit.

As will be seen later, this resulted in a pattern - the engineer called up to say that such issues were being faced by random end-users and doesn't require a site visit to diagnose. In turn I receive a mail and phone saying the engineer wasn't unable to reach me. This strange thread of conversation continued for a couple of days till 22Nov2010. Thereafter the customer service mails stated that the engineer did visit the premises and found it locked. I am not surprised at that. With both of us having offices to attend, anyone planning to drop in on weekdays without a prior appointment might find the house locked. The fun was that this time a different engineer called up to suggest that if the problem continued I should feel free to demand a visit.

Guess what ? The customer care responds with the fact that the engineer was unable to contact me !

Having had enough of it, I copied the Nodal office on a mail. In turn I receive a call from a gentleman claiming to be Local Service Manager who said during the conversation that he "assumed that since I never had a problem I was not allowing the engineers to visit the premises". Since in my book this is more or less accusing the end customer of lying I wrote in a detail statement to the Nodal office. During the evening I receive a call from them saying that they would look into the matter and wanted to resolve the issue.

Sounds fair till now ?

I received an immediate follow up call from the customer care asking me to confirm that the issue was resolved since the on site engineer had updated "the internal system" with a sign-off from the customer.

As of today I am a bit puzzled:

• no one visit the premises
• the local service manager accuses me of lying
• the Nodal office promises a look
• the on site engineer updates the issue with a sign off from me citing satisfactory resolution

I find it definitely hilarious. Although I'd be grateful if anyone could point me out to an escalation path beyond the Nodal office for Airtel DTH. I'd like at least have someone tell me that they are sorry about creating this whole hierarchy of lies around an issue which might as well be something as trivial as a software upgrade.