Airtel Call Home - India Calling Service - A case of No Action Talk Only
Bharti Airtel launched their India calling service for US based NRIs called www.airtelcallhome.com last week. It was launched with such a big bang that most desis were talking about it at work. The catchpoint was 7.9 cents per minute and the best part was the signup bonus of free minutes. Add all this to the brandname and brand ambassadors behind Bharti - Everyone was gaga about this.
I too like most desis use Reliance India Call to call home. It costs 12.9 cents per minute and is very reliable. I immediately thought that Reliance will have to cut their rates to compete. Next day I tried registering at their site. The ordeal that followed was nighmarish
1) To start with, the site was extremely slow
2) During sign up, the website captured all details except my phone numbers. No matter how many times I try updating that field, it comes with with the message "There was some error in updating your registered number".
3) After the registration, they assigned a login id which was a random number. How the hell am I supposed to remember a random number to login in everytime? Usability went for a walk !!!
4) I thought to myself, I have seen this.Its just teething issues. They just went live couple of days back and maybe they are working on it. Let me try calling home. But what followed even more terrible. The calls got cut every 3 minutes and it was extremely frustrating. The saving grace was the sound quality during the time the call was on.
5) I tried contacting their support thru their "Contact Us" link. In the comments field (textarea) no matter how much text I fill, it says I have left it empty. Some amazing Javascript work there...
Overall I was very happy to see my favorite Indian company launching such a service for people like me but the happiness has turned into frustration in no time.
This kind of makes me think what kind of testing would they have conducted before launching the service? I am sure they never did any kind of load testing or performance or stress testing. The management was just eager to upset Reliance and in the process has compromised quality. All my friends who used the service last week were disappointed just like me.
2 things Bharti could have done
1) Gone the old fashioned way and do some thorough testing of their systems and account for some load given the attractive price point at which the service was launched
2) Gone the GMAIL way where they should given out membership by invitation only. They could have tested the load incrementally and signing up for this service would have become something like a "Must Have" thing very quickly by word of mouth.
Anyway, they went with all guns blazing when all they had was only water pistols.
posted by Sandesh @ Monday, December 11, 2006
14 Comments:
Looks like they had some kids do the JSP pages and never tested it.
I signed up with Airtel Callhome only yesterday as I never really liked Reliance.
Airtel is sort of my favorite brand ever since their AR Rehman tune days in India.The voice clarity has been great so far, and I haven't encountered any major problems. Maybe they have sorted things out by now. Keeping fingers crossed here!
Partha, they didn't solve anything. How could I did that mistake try to sign up airtel before looking what others said. See my experience even though it's not different than others http://www.readers-cafe.net/mlp/?p=102
the soln .. get broadband connection in india and use a SKYPE voip phone for 14.95 $ for the WHOLE YEAR...
I think airtel is worth for what you pay and IMO better than Reliance. More positive thoughts about airtel can be found at:
http://its4us2think.wordpress.com/2006/12/12/airtel-call-home-sucks/#comment-10
Needless to add that I have been through all that has already been so eloquently written vide supra. At the same time, I do agree the call rates are really attractive, so I would use Airtel so long Reliance does not bring theirs at par if not necessarily equal. No wonder Bharti, the parent company of Airtel also happens to be a partner with Walmart. They need to carefully look into the history of Walmart: cheap deals don't necessarily attract people, while every bad experience repels customers forever.
Airtel is doomed!! All the money they spent on marketing, infrastructure, everything down the drain...
I just got an e-mail from Reliance saying they slashed the price to 7.9Cents AND they are giving double talk time till Jan 30. I absolutely have no reason to try airtel again!
Imagine how much Airtel would have paid Sharukh and how much they would have paid for airtime on all those hindi channels. If they would have spent a fraction of it on quality/load testing, they would have been soo much better off...
Worst service ever .... I hate myself for purchasing Airtel card. I purchased $200 due to their double-minutes scheme. Reliance is better and are matching the Airtel Rates now .... Grrrr !!
In just the past decade, the phone card industry has mushroomed to a $4 billion industry with an estimated 500 million cards sold last year alone. Pre-paid phone cards offer convenience for travelers and access to generally economical telecommunications prices for those consumers without telephone service in their homes. However, there are things to consider when purchasing a pre-paid phone card.
Beware of Extremely Low Rate Cards: If you are buying a prepaid calling card from an unfamiliar company, buy the minimum denomination and try it. Because some companies advertise rates as low as 1? per minute, this way you should be able to spot surcharges and hidden costs before you spend a lot of money.
Before you purchase a prepaid telephone card, carefully read the card and its package very closely for the following fees and surcharges:
Connection Fee: Many cards charge at least 50? for connection and in some cases even more each time you make a call.
Pay Phone Surcharge: Many cards charge an additional fee of at least 50? per call for each call made from a pay phone.
International Surcharge: Many cards charge an additional fee of up to $3.00 for each international call.
Taxes: Many cards levy an additional surcharge of up to 25% per call for "taxes."
"Maintenance Fees": Some cards charge a weekly "maintenance fee" after the card is first used. If you use the card only occasionally, this fee can add up.
Rounding: Most cards round up a call to the next minute. Some cards use six minute rounding. This means a one minute call will be charged as a six minute call.
How to Shop for a Prepaid Calling Card
Many prepaid phone cards do not disclose enough information, especially information about their actual rates which is necessary to enable consumers to make informed purchasing decisions.
Cards that charge very low per minute rates (1?- 4.9?) but high surcharges may still be a reasonable value if you make calls of 10-15 minutes each.
If you anticipate using the card to make calls under 10 minutes, cards that charge a higher per minute rate (9.9? and up) but do not have surcharges are probably the better deal.
Those who expect to use pay phones should be careful to look for cards that don?t surcharge for this service.
Although many prepaid phone cards make express promises of substantial savings, many fail to disclose the basis of the claimed savings.
The quality of the service provided can vary dramatically among prepaid phone cards. Some cards provide excellent service. With others, consumers may encounter trouble connecting to calls or with the quality of the call. Still others charge for uncompleted calls or turn out not to work at all.
There are also significant differences in the features provided by prepaid phone cards. Before buying a prepaid calling card, consider how you will use the card. Some cards provide no extra features, while others provide consumers with such benefits as the ability to proceed in different languages, speed dialing, the ability to be recharged to add additional value and protection against loss.
Additional benefits often come at a price. The more features a prepaid phone card has and the more information it provides its users, the more expensive it tends to be.
Questions or complaints about pre-paid phone cards or its posters or advertisements should be directed to the Attorney General?s consumer help line at (800) 771-7755.
Finally, they have decided to fix something atleast. I almost consoled myself that the balance left will soon start appearing as savings that can never be withdrawn.
The best Service i have got so far is from RAZA.COM due to Airtel and reliance rate they have dropped their rate to 5.8 cents a minute with the addition of 700 minutes free...Hope they keep the rates low cuase i really like their service alot----
Using Calling card/Airtel/Relience for ISD((INDIA/UK/CANADA/USA) calling???? and not getting any extra(double) talk time.... try this...
Login into the
https://www.stanacard.com
Use Pramotion code:- 149700
Loged in today and get the benifit..... get double talk value......enroll 20$ value get 40$ talk value......WOW what a offer.....
very good sound quality, you will never be regret..... after enrolling it..... so go and get it....all number are toll free number you can enroll as many number in this....
Airtel has great call quality andvery economical rates.The best part is that I haven't experienced any call drops yet.
This is a good time to check them out at https://www.airtelcallhome.com/ics/US/special_offers.jsp
They running an offer underwhich one can get upto 200 mins Free Talktime and a Free Gift delivered to India.
Dear Sir/Madam,
This is to bring to your kind attention, I kamal Kamboj (9896088288) resident Haryana have been airtel subscriber for the past 7 yrs. I was using pospaid
connection which i later got coverted to prepaid connection. The services that i was availing from the Operator was the lifetime Prepaid Connection
My greivence is that on 5 dec-09 that my services was discontinued without prior intimation. There after i talked with Mr. Sudhkar(Nodal officer), not only
was the person rude but was not ready to give the reason for discontinuation of my telephone services. Later after continous persuation, the reason given to
me was that i had not used my connection for a long time. Here I bring to your kind Notice that i had used my phone last outgoing and receiving services a
month back.
Sir, My point here is being using a lifetime connection the service provider has not given me any such information that if i do not use my phone for a period
of one month my service shall be disconnected. As a result of which i have missed a lot of important phone calls and has been there a lot of inconveince and
not to mention the unnecessary harrasment of which i have to go through for the disconnection of phone which should not have been done in the first place.
Sir, I would be highly obliged if you could pls guide me as to what may be my further cause of action and how my problem may be solved.
Looking forward to your guidence and worthy suggestions.
rgds,
Kamal kamboj
kamal_gem@rediffmail.com
+91 98550 37773
Post a Comment
<< Home