[carwatcher]

I read your post and what I observed was:
1. You should have enquired about the SIM replacement procedure on Airtel Customer Care before going to the ARC so as to avoid such type of situation. (If your time permitted). SIM replacement is one of the routine procedures for them and its not a complicated procedure which can't be explained over the phone.
2. Its not clear from your post that whether you were carrying any proof linking the relationship between you and your wife. For e.g. Your ID proof will have your's and your father's name. But your wife's ID will have her and her father's OR your name. So what I intend to say if you were carrying her ID then they should've given you the replacement SIM after some verification otherwise think for a second from their perspective and tell how they convince themselves that you are their customer's spouse and give you the SIM just like that.
3. I hope you understand that mobile connection is an individual and private matter. We are seeing so many cases of misuse of private info, Divorce cases, failed marriages, and also TERRORISM, etc. So how can a company give such a confidential thing like SIM just to anybody without a proper authority, if they do they are careless, if they don't they are labelled as non customer friendly.
4. Compare this situation with the foreign countries. If they refuse you or me, we just come back politely (after apologising them even if its not your mistake) and go back with proper documents next time and also praise their "follow the rules" mentality. In India, a customer just is not ready to accept his mistake or omission. In fact if you dig deeper, one of the main cause of prevalent corruption and business of Touts, Agents and Brokers is due to the fact that no one is ready to even follow the simple rules.

Now, coming to AirTel, what I observed is :

1. Now a days, its very tough to find a skilled employee, then to train him or her, then to retain him or her for a reasonable period of time, then to save him or her from being poached by rivals. (I have seen once that ENTIRE staff from Vodafone gallery was poached by Tata Teleservices and the Manager was servicing the customers and waiting for new recruits) All this ultimately results in appointing of unskilled people (Eg. part-time college students) as customer care staff on low salary without even any basic training on even the routine procedures who are then misguiding customers all the time and always under pressure, not finding time to even have lunch on time forget about upgrading the knowledge. This is prevailing in all the sectors whether you go to Mobile gallery, car showroom, home appliances showroom, banks, hospitals, insurance, and where not. One more side effect of this is rude behaviour as the employee feels cornered by their ever demanding employer, co-workers and sometimes by customers also. At the same time, I strongly feel that however demanding the situation is, the staff must not behave in this way with the customers as the staff has come to this profession of Customer Service by his or her choice and should have that attitude in them from day one or they can simply change their profession if they don't have in them. Why spoil your own peace of mind, company's reputation and customer's trust all in one go. On this ground you can complain to higher authorities and I feel you must.

2. Infact you can judge from the scolding given by ARC-2 to ARC-1 that handing over the replacement SIM is even though a routine matter but is also a very very serious matter (my opinion too) and should be followed very carefully and strictly with established rules. I give you my eg. My ICICI credit card was given to me by Blue Dart courier person only in third attempt and at my home even though he missed me twice and he left that "we missed you, pls contact on xyz no." and when I contacted him and went to Blue Dart office, I was politely told that even if we have to come ten times to your residence or we have to return the card to bank, we will not hand it over to you here, it will be given at your residence only. I showed them my Id, another ICICI credit card but they simply and politely refused.

I hope I cleared your doubts and No I don't work for any mobile company (I am a businessman) and I sincerely have no intention to offend you in case you feel so.
On the lighter side, my reply is even longer than your post.
Thanks to all for reading.

[mayankjha1806]

Leaving aside the language used and treatment to anyone visiting the ARC, and even if it caused all the inconvenience, she was only following the rules.

In my place both the phones are registered on my name, and i was in US for few weeks and my wife's phone stopped working because of some problem with the SIM. She visited the Relation ship centers but they would not issue her another SIM. So i had to send them an email from my registered email ID and she had to go with her ID and my passport photocopies which has her name as well. After all the gymnastics they gave her a replacement SIM.

[Warwithwheels]

Originally Posted by noopster

At the end of the day you got what you came for despite not really being entitled to. So what are you complaining about?

+1 to that.

ARC2 did the right thing by refusing the SIM card to you. Rightfully you should have taken your wife along or at least an authorization letter to that effect.

BTW if you have an idea that reporting to Airtel higher Authorities would bring you some relief, please forget it right away. They care a damn about that. Have you ever spoken to their Nodal Officer or Appellate Officer? They are just the same bunch of people with a different tag. And customer care in telecom industry in India is nothing but a joke.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by Warwithwheels

And customer care in telecom industry in India is nothing but a joke.

Why only single out telecom, it is across the board. The only point I found excellent CS was from Kingfisher. We flew Mombai-Mangalore and back on KF-red, and were seated in the middle. Both times food ran out by the time they reached us. In the latter there were some passengers with young children who had asked them to keep some food when they boarded in Kochi, and that too had been sold out. I e-mailed KF and was surprised to get three apologetic calls. They said they had checked, found to complaint/reaction slips had been handed out in either of the flights, and had taken action. The procedure of giving out a small snack on Red started only after these incidents.

[Warwithwheels]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Why only single out telecom, it is across the Board

Agreed. But then my experience with the Customer Care support team in the other Industries has never been so bad to make such a bold statement. Or maybe I din't have the need to interact with them so frequently to get disgruntled.

Coming back to Telecom, I have had connections from almost all major telecom operators in India and my experience has been the same across all the operators. It keeps deteriorating as the industry grows.

However, during the days when there was a boom in the call center industry in India, the service was pretty much good. I guess the call centers were able to hire better talent. Sadly, it is not the case anymore!

[mayankk]

The thing in the industry is that theres a flowchart book, a veritable compilation of if-then-else.
no leeway, no margin.
if you have proper documents, then xxxx action, else decline.
They cant do anything aprt from the two.
I agree, discretion can be allowed, but the days of outsourcing demand sticking to SOP, or take a hit by of the contract, or worse, courts.
for the client facing indiv, its a matter of one complaint, and the jobs gone.

That being said, customer care now has become such a stickler for the book of rules, that actual customer care, the soft side, communicating to your primary giver, is hardly there.

I dont mind you sticking to the rules, but let me know acurately, and more importantly, in a polite manner.

It really is not my headache that there are 20 or 200 people asking you the same question everyday.
Its what your signed up for.

I tell the same to people in my own company too.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by noopster

They were absolutely within their rights to refuse to issue a duplicate SIM to anyone but the owner.

The problem here is that you refused to take no for an answer. So beyond a reasonable point they, being human, will just give up trying to reason with you and become recalcitrant.

The guy at ARC1 probably knows you and bent the rules to retain a "good customer". Fair enough. Perhaps he had some discretionary powers.

At the end of the day you got what you came for despite not really being entitled to. So what are you complaining about?

I think this post got lost in all the emotions.

Of course lackadaisical attitude, rude language and lack of etiquette from Customer service should not be tolerated at all.

But we need to learn to back off when we are wrong.
That is SORELY lacking in India. Its almost a blow to ego to acknowledge that we are on the wrong side, and walk away with our tail tucked between our legs.

[Vasuki]

@KK : No offense. The staff @ ARC2 may have behaved badly, you can report it to airtel, but I say they are perfectly right in insisting your wife's presence. This is a serious issue and ARC1 should be taken to the task for issuing duplicate SIM to you. Wrt to customer courtesy you are right "CUSTOMER IS KING" , but rules should be followed.

: We @ financial institutions consider any body other than the person himself as third party and does not accept any request unless accompained by proper authorization. And as far I know, AIRTEL can be taken to task by TRAI for not enforcing rules.

[drmohitg]

This is really funny. As a customer, it is the OP who has been inconvenienced. You should lodge a complaint. ARC 1 was at fault for not telling you that you need your wife to be present with the relevant documents. How is a customer supposed to know that.
On the other hand ARC 2 is also equally at fault for 2 reasons:
1. They can't speak and quarrel amongst themselves in front of the customer.
2. However irritated the customer gets ( remember in this case it was totally Airtel's fault, ARC 1 being a part of the Airtel company) , what right does it give to the ARC 2 Staff to say that bauaht aate hain and stuff. They should know that its there people who failed to brief the customer properly regarding the criterion and sent him to them. At the least be polite and show some dignity in the way you handle customers.
Going by this logic that the customer can get demanding and then the ARC 2's attitude is justified, is so foolish. That way all customer care executives can shout back at you.

I really feel you should still lodge a complaint although I am sure no action would be taken. Airtel sometime does act strange. I had a Airtel broadband connection in bangalore and while moving back to delhi I informed them to disconnect the same and take back there equipment. I had an outstanding of some 1200 rs but due to the shortage of time on my hands, I asked there Customer care people if I could pay the same in Delhi. They said I can and I went to the Airtel office in Delhi with my bill to clear the outstanding. To my shock they told me they can't take the payment and I need to go back to bangalore and can only pay there. I smiled and walked away. Its the companies loss.

[revintup]

ARC2 is to be blamed because they could have reasoned with you properly before using street language. While they were well within their rights to refuse you, they should have done properly and politely.

And with regards to complaints, she probably doesnt know what a properly worded complaint, from a regular customer would do. Just go ahead and mail a complaint. Lets see where it leads to.


Your signature says "Nation First-always and everytime".

Yet you have 6 airtel connections and no bsnl?

[noopster]

Originally Posted by alpha1

I think this post got lost in all the emotions.

Of course lackadaisical attitude, rude language and lack of etiquette from Customer service should not be tolerated at all.

But we need to learn to back off when we are wrong.
That is SORELY lacking in India. Its almost a blow to ego to acknowledge that we are on the wrong side, and walk away with our tail tucked between our legs.

Thank you!

This is not a problem restricted to India.

Are you aware of Southwest Airways? They have been rated as the favourite airline (not just among the low-cost ones but across the board) by customers in numerous surveys. Even they have a policy that they would stand behind their employees in case a customer is unreasonable or abusive. No evidence of the latter in this case, but it certainly wasn't reasonable to expect someone to issue a duplicate SIM card to anyone but the owner.

I have seen "customers" treat service staff with utter disdain, rudeness and even in some cases violence when those folks are just DOING THEIR JOBS. They certainly didn't sign up for that- and they don't deserve to!

[ASHISHPALLOD]

Originally Posted by noopster

those folks are just DOING THEIR JOBS. They certainly didn't sign up for that- and they don't deserve to!

@noopster,
man,
thread starter already stopped to reply, tu bhi baas kar na.
otherwise i will rename you as '' Spitfire of Pune''.[ in positive sense]

No offence, spitfire, please.

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by noopster

I have seen "customers" treat service staff with utter disdain, rudeness and even in some cases violence when those folks are just DOING THEIR JOBS. They certainly didn't sign up for that- and they don't deserve to!

It works both ways. Sometimes the customers get unreasonably demanding and abusive - you can see lot of such examples specially in Delhi with most people possessing the "mere baap ka naam pata hai" mentality. Last week had gone to watch a movie. There were just 3 people in the queue for the tickets and the hall was not even 10% full. The poor guy managing the ticketing had to restart his pc for some error in the system and it took him 4-5 minutes to do it. The guy waiting in front of me for the tickets, carrying a BB Bold starts off with his BC,MC and the likes to my utter shock. The moron couldn't wait for 5 minutes.

On the other hand many a times these customer care people also act really badly. Just like in our OP's case. You can keep on refusing politely but there is no reason to act arrogant. Afterall isn't it your job to be patient and handle situations professionally.

Like the new Title being awarded to you BTW: Spitfire of pune

[noopster]

no offence dude but Delhi is a whole different country. Don't get me wrong- the few times I've been there I have had a lovely time, down to the rick guy who charged me BY METER from Green Park to Sikandara Road (no Delhiite believes me when I narrate this tale especially since I have such a strong Bambaiyya accent!)

I agree- sometimes you get really annoyed by these guys and I confess that I have blown my top at the Airtel showroom near my place as well! No firespitting from my side, promise!

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by noopster

no offence dude but Delhi is a whole different country. Don't get me wrong

Why will I get offended. I myself took some months to get accustomed to delhi's style of functioning after returning from bangalore. Its crazy here man. Everyone is a neta's relative. The best part is You do whatever crime you want and take the expressway to gurgaon or noida and its paradise thereafter.

BTW was the rick guy from bombay himself by any chance?