Is airtel losing its edge?

Airtel has all these years been known for the experience it has been delivering to its customers.  There are only two telecom operators in India so far to which customers have emotionally attached – airtel and Vodafone.  Others have contributed and are adding value to the lives of their customers, but the emotional connect isn’t that strong. This can be easily understood in conversations with the customers of such operators who share their anecdotes of how emotionally they are connected with these operators and despite several tectonic changes in the telecom landscape, they have remained loyal to these operators.

But things seem to be fast changing for airtel.  Be it on the consumer or enterprise side, there are not very good signals coming in about airtel.  I was recently having conversation with a few IT heads of mid-sized organisations as well as the vendors who offer them communication solutions.  Both had a consensus about airtel with regards to its degrading customer centricity.  One as an end user, and another as reseller of their leased lines and other services.  The concern was not just about pricing, but about the support they get from airtel teams and the time it takes to turnaround as well as execute a project.  Today, no one has that liberty to wait for so long.  Compared to this, they find other providers, sometimes local partners as well, very agile, and quick in their turnaround making them their preferred connectivity partner in the enterprise domain.

On the residential side, I have a first-hand account.  Now, before I share more details, let me make it clear that its not a ‘revenge’ note or an attempt to generalise the issue.  It’s about sharing critical feedback from someone who has been a loyal and emotionally invested customer of the operator for over a decade. I wish whatever I share turns out to be an isolated case.

Starting this year, when I got to know that airtel Xstream is now available in my locality, I instantly switched to them and opted for a plan under their black bundled services.  The plan also had all the OTT applications bundled including Netflix.  Now as a consumer, I saw the service up very quickly and found all my OTT applications working.  In the airtel thanks app, I also saw Netflix claimed with a ‘manage’ option to click.  For some reasons, the service wasn’t used by me for few months, however all the bills, etc., were paid in time and the service was active.  My mobile service of the entire family was also linked to the same black service.

Only few weeks back, when suddenly I saw a notification on the screen upon opening up Netflix that its suspended due to payment failure, I reached customer support, and the following series of events took place.

1. As a standard practice a ticket was raised and being looked into.
2. Suddenly, got a message that it has been ‘resolved’.
3. Again, approached the customer care and was told that they can’t do much at their end.  I was made to write a very long alpha-numeric partner code and told to contact Netflix customer care and share this code with them.
4. Checked with Netflix guys, they were prompt and said there is nothing at their end as they can’t find any account linked with my number.  They never asked for the partner code given to me and said that isn’t of any use to them.
5. Came back to airtel, where I was told to again do the basic troubleshooting of logging out and logging in the airtel thanks app and check the status of thanks rewards.  This was futile. I was its being escalated to higher ups.
6. There was dead silence again for a few days. I reached out again to inquire about my case, and this is for the first time I met an aware customer support specialist.  He said that Netflix can’t work on my account as my number was already using Netflix before signing up this plan.  My argument was why wasn’t this told to me at the signing up of the plan and also if they can show me any terms and conditions that were presented, and I may have signed up.  He kept on insisting that it is written. Finally, said its on website to which I said that if they were expecting customers to read their entire website.  Eventually, I requested him to send me written on mail where this has been mentioned and/or shown to me.  He promised a reply in 4 hours, which never came. Meanwhile, I checked the website again and found nothing like this while choosing for a black plan. Infact, in FAQs it mentions that for existing accounts ₹1,500 will be credited as Netflix subscription for 3 months.
7. Seeing things not moving anywhere, I finally wrote to the CEO, only after which I saw calls coming in from customer care, this time again some senior executives.  While they were polite and courteous, I never understand why they irk further by requesting to narrate the issue again and again.
8. By then I understood that its not the same airtel and made up a decision to port all my services to a competition, which was very quick to grab the opportunity.
9. When all this happened, got an SMS on my number that unlimited access to Netflix has been enabled as part of my plan.  To me this was more of a favour than resolution of my issue.

The above might be an isolated case and airtel customers might be very happy with the operator.  But I felt cheated for being charged all these months against a plan promising to offer me certain services which weren’t technically feasible as per the customer care executives of airtel.  This lost my trust and I decided to bid farewell to a brand to which I was emotionally attached to. 

Hearing and experiencing both the ends of enterprise as well as residential services of airtel, it seems that the operator is not heading on the right track and needs a course correction in line with the customer expectations.  I think for past several years, airtel has not thought anything innovative, but focused more on what has been Jio doing and how to retaliate to it.  Keeping a track of competition is very important for business, but then one should not become just a blind eye follower of what the industry is doing.  A brand needs to stand out and do things differently, especially sticking to its values and philosophy.  That’s what creates a brand value and emotionally bonds customers. Otherwise, in the digital world there isn’t much to differentiate.  Its only the strong bond based on trust that will keep customers glued to a brand. I sincerely hope that airtel management looks into end to end operations and tries to be real airtel than focusing more on addressing the FOMO.