A few Good Men

I had a recent experience with Airtel that I must share with you all. After my posting here, I got a new postpaid connection, paying over the counter to a retailer. As you are aware, companies like Airtel made their fortune by allowing pan-wallahs, grocery stores and other such local shops to sell their SIMs to customers. Now my retailer registered my SIM (an advance 998 post paid rental) under a different Plan (444 Monthly Plan). When I corrected it, naturally Airtel billed me for the new Plan as well. I refused to pay the outstanding amount that was being reflected in my monthly bill. When I contacted the local retailer, he washed his hands off the affair, saying he had forwarded my money to a relationship centre for further submission to Airtel. Every second day someone from Airtel was ringing me up, asking me when I would be paying this amount, Rs 1000.00 And every third day, my phone was being shut down. On 6 April, the line went totally dead, with both the incoming and outgoing being shut off. As a last ditch effort, I confronted the retailer, saying I would not move unless my problem was resolved. It took an hour for him to get me in touch with an Area Sales Manager, who further put me through to a colleague, Ashish Sangwan. It was this person who resurrected my faith in Airtel. He traced the relationship centre that had registered my connection, had him cough up the amount (Rs998) and finally got my number working again. All these three months, I must have talked to at least 50 people from Airtel without any satisfactory response. I wrote emails to the Appelate and Nodal officers that were ignored with just reference numbers being given to me and terse one liners telling me that I could not be contacted. How could I, when they were shutting me off every few days? It is sometimes the small cog that keeps the wagon wheel rolling. So the next time you face a problem like this, go from down to top. Catch hold of the next person up the line. He's bound to take your call!