Airtel

Airtel, the telecom brand of Bharti enterprise is one of the upbeat service providers of India, that’s catching on with the masses. Airtel offers landline, broadband and cellular services. However, it’s most famous for cellular services. Airtel rates an overall good in customer care and above average in voice clarity and coverage. However, one of the areas of concerns is the non-transparent billing and its comparatively high tariffs.

There are a host of options offered in both prepaid and postpaid category. The prepaid recharge options range from as low as Rs.10 to luxuries of Rs.10,000. A wide range of services too are available that comprises of MMS, voice mail, conferencing, call management and so on. Airtel provides more recharge options like internet recharge, recharge via ATM etc that can be of good advantage in times of need. The postpaid options too are accountable considering the host of services offered.

Among all the hype that surrounds of this ‘private-big’ company, one tends to forget the ground issue concerns of the user. Yes, beyond the fancy advertisements shown with few eminent film actors pitched in for publicity, the Airtel Services don’t prove to be completely similar to what they say they are!! A basic thing, which any customer would endear, is excellent coverage. But, if customer feedback is to be believed (and it has to for sure!), airtel fails in some places of India in providing basic coverage. Indeed, it proves to be the best option for metros but somehow smaller cities, towns and villages seem to have been ignored entirely.

Next is the billing system. It isn’t completely transparent adding to the customer woes. Many of the extra services are charged and mind you they are charged heavily! The user is expected to read between the lines of the promotional taglines. Roaming is available but in certain regions it costs you more money than call charges! That was just one example; there are few other services where airtel disappoints. Not entirely because it fails to provide them rather for the disheartening fact that it promises to deliver it with several advertisements (with a conditions apply tag that’s usually unseen!) and then fails to deliver them. Needless to say, several of the users feel betrayed and end up cursing the ad campaigns as it was a trap for them. Lack of consistency and efficiency (read it expected efficiency!) is a turn-off for many users.

The tariff isn’t the best in the market, although they are quite reasonable. The customer care again, is excellent at times, but at times it just fails to solve the basic problems of the customer. Perhaps, people have huge expectations (most of which is self created by the company) and when that isn’t met it leads to a lot of rebuke to the company. An overview would suggest, Airtel for ‘big city’ dwellers , while India which is still ‘more of the country of villages’ sorts, needs to hunt for other better options.