Friday, September 14, 2012

How to complaint against your Mobile Operator and get solutions effectively

This is further to my previous post on how cumbersome it is to avail mobile and telecom services in India .. I thought it is necessary to share information on

HOW TO PLACE A COMPLAINT AGAINST YOUR TELECOM OPERATOR AND GET YOUR ISSUES RESOLVED !

The biggest irony of Consumerism in India is that, while nothing can ensure the QoS (Quality of Services) provided by various enterprises, there are a lot of terms and conditions with an added * which ensure customer loyalty and servility.

If you look closely to the Indian consumer-provider relationship, it will be difficult to understand who is servicing whom..?

In case of mobile services, Time and again, we all have been bugged by one or more of these problems..
  • Unfair balance deduction
  • Over Billing
  • Services not activated
  • Refund not sent..
There may be a lot of reasons that may prompt you to complaint against your operator.
But, you have a bigger reasons that prevent you from complaining..
We do not tend to complaint because:
cartoon of subscriber complaining about mobile operator
  • It seems tedious
  • We do not have the time to visit offices/centres
  • We seldom get actions...


And many times, we actually do not want to set our blood boiling for small amount of money.

If you are tired of calling the customer care without getting suitable resolution for your problem.. then here is what you can do.

How to complaint against Mobile Operator online, without much trouble !

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI has made it mandatory for mobile telecom 
operators to set up a two-tier Web-based system whereby customers can track the status of their complaints.

Here is how to get your problem solved effectively!

Initial Complaint of a Subscriber

1. Call Centre : 
  • Explain your problem to the customer care executive. Be polite but strong do not use abusive words even if you are very very angry. Ask them to solve the issue right away.
  • If the executive does not understand your problem, or is unable to take corrective action (which I am sure will happen) do not waste your time.... 
ask him to register a complaint and provide a complaint-ID-Number. 
  • If he does not provide that... talk to his supervisor.. you will surely get a complaint-ID. ( unique docket number)
As per TRAI regulations, every complaint at the Customer care shall be registered by giving a unique docket number, which will remain in the system for at least three months. The docket number along with date and time of registration and the time limit for resolution of the complaint would be communicated to the consumer through SMS. The customer shall also be informed of the action taken through SMS.

Appellate Authority of mobile operator

If a subscriber is not satisfied with the redressal of his complaint, he can approach the next tier – the Appellate Authority for redressal of his complaints.  
  • Once you get the complaint id, immediately mail the appellate authority..
You will find the email id on your operator's website 
  • from personal experience.. first reply will be a template, that will ask you to visit their centre etc..
  • reply strongly, ask to redress your grievance.
You will soon get a call from them and they will try to solve your problems.

FINAL STEP: SUBSCRIBER COMPLAINT TO TRAI

  • If the problem still exists, you can appeal to TRAI. I know of these three IDs where you can forward your grievance 

    Ap@trai.gov.in
    daca@trai.gov.inpradvlegal@trai.gov.in
In the above manner you can get your problem solved from your desk, without going to any office or standing in queues!!




3 comments:

Tomichan Matheikal said...

Thanks for the info. I'm a Reliance 3G datacard client. I find amounts being deducted from my core account on and off. Recently in three days they deducted Rs 75 (Rs 20, 15, 20, 20) for no reason at all. When I complained they gave me a docket no. But nothing has happened. This is not the first time they are doing this. What can I do? Can I complain to TRAI against 3G datacard problem too?

priyanka said...

Hi Matheikal,
TRAI requires all operators to have a two tier grievance redressal system..

You are done with the first and since you did not get a satisfactory resolution.. I suggest you to mail the appellate authority of reliance, and keep TRAI mail IDs(mentioned in my post)in CC

you can find your regional appellate authority's mail id here .. http://www.rcom.co.in/Rcom/personal/customercare/AppellateAuthority.html

maddy said...

I mused through through Google and hit your blog when I tried to search for people who suffered my kind of apathy with vodafone.

I did a MNP from Airtel Pre paid to Vodafone Post paid in the 1st week of October 2013 based on the assurances of the Vodafone store located in Adyar, Chennai by the manager, Mr.Rajasekar and my number is 9952013229.
I have been following since then for no signal at my residence and Vodafone has still not responded properly to this. I had to escalate this with the Nodal officer and there too this problem followed and I did the same with the Appellate authority and still not heard from them. Meanwhile I am already getting calls for my bill payment when I haven't seen a redressal of this complaint and moreover have been losing many a important calls. I subscribed to missed call alert to call back but to my apathy I am getting the alert after 12 hours!
The call center executives have a habitual way of cutting calls. The numbers I have received calls from are
1. +91 (0) 422-7166159
2. +91(0) 422-7166118 - the executive's name is Sandhya and the last 2 times she called was on 14th and on 18th Nov. 2013.

My connection has been disconnected now.