Accept the updated privacy & cookie policy Dear user, ET Telecom privacy and cookie policy has been updated to align with the new data regulations in European Union. Please review and accept these changes below to continue using the website. You can see our privacy policy & our cookie policy. We use cookies to ensure the best experience for you on our website. If you choose to ignore this message, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on ET Telecom.<doc-sep>Airtel said its representatives were merely doing their job and trying to solve the service issue but were wrongly targeted for “acceptance of discrimination”. Airtel said its representatives were merely doing their job and trying to solve the service issue but were wrongly targeted for “acceptance of discrimination”. Two days after the company came under fire for discrimination, Airtel Wednesday put out a statement saying events reported have been “untrue and factually incorrect”. The company maintained that its representatives were following a “dutiful course” in their regular work shift and were taught a “harsh lesson” that their religious identities matter. On Monday, a customer tweeted to Airtel with a complaint, to which its representative, Shoaib, responded. The customer, however, wrote back to the company saying “you’re a Muslim and I have no faith in your working ethics because Kuran may have different version for customer service, thus requesting you to assign a Hindu representative for my request.” She subsequently got a response from a Gaganjot at Airtel. Also read | Woman asks Airtel’s customer service for ‘Hindu representative’, Twitterati seethe Several users on social media pulled up the company for condoning racial intolerance. Many questioned why the company did not respond immediately, questioning the complainant’s request for a Hindu representative. Some people even said they would change their service provider due to the incident. Did Airtel really bow down to a discriminatory request? Maybe you should read this. pic.twitter.com/Mr7b8Pgrci — airtel India (@airtelindia) June 20, 2018 Airtel said its representatives were merely doing their job and trying to solve the service issue but were wrongly targeted for “acceptance of discrimination” and “bowing down to bigotry”. According to the company, Shoaib was busy and the user’s complaint was assigned to the next available representative automatically. “We did not and we repeat, we DID NOT change the advisor because of the unfathomable request from the said customer. At Airtel, we never have and never will succumb to differentiating on the basis of religion, ethnicity or caste,” the company said in a statement, adding that the world was watching and reading into the incident “from a different lens”. “While Shoaib and Gaganjot went about working on this case they learnt a harsh lesson. That their religious identity matters. That they should check identities before taking up the responsibility of a service request,” Airtel added.<doc-sep>An Airtel Customer care centre in India Reuters The telecom company has been heavily criticized after it failed to defend a Muslim employee against discrimination from a customer Airtel India has been heavily criticized after it failed to defend a Muslim employee against discrimination from a customer. According to the BBC, the row began on Monday when Pooja Singh – the customer in question - tweeted that she had a terrible experience with a call centre employee. When an Airtel customer service representative with a Muslim name replied, she asked for a "Hindu representative” as she had "no faith" in the Muslim employee's "working ethics" since "the Koran may have a different version for customer service." Scant hours had passed before another Airtel customer representative – this time, not a Muslim – responded in compliance with Pooja’s request and offered to accommodate her. Screenshots taken from Twitter The exchange received intense backlash online as many interpreted the move as extremely anti-Muslim. The former chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir denounced the company, saying he would stop using Airtel. After it was widely condemned on social media, Airtel issued a statement on Twitter claiming to be above discrimination. 1. How @Airtel_Presence responded to bigotry at 3.25pm. 2. How @Airtel_Presence responded to bigotry at 8.18pm after twitter backlash. . Happy that @TwitterIndia spoke out, disappointed that I share my Nation / Religion / Service Provider with poison pills like @pooja303singh. pic.twitter.com/dPhgMPzA0E — Akash Banerjee (@akashbanerjee) June 18, 201 However, many users have continued to criticize the company over the initial response complying with the discriminatory request. Many people have also trolled the customer for her tweet - one called her a "Hindu bigot" and another referred to her as a "hatemonger." Pooja has since responded, claiming that those who have criticized her have only proven her right. The incident happened a day after Ola, an Indian taxicab aggregator, landed in controversy when one of its drivers refused to drop a Muslim customer at his location. The company issued a public apology and fired the driver the following day.<doc-sep>Dubai: After landing in a Twitter row last week, Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel Limited has finally issued a long statement to clarify what went wrong on their part. However, not many are satisfied with their reply. On Monday, tweep Pooja Singh contacted Airtel’s support on Twitter. When a Muslim customer care agent replied, she requested to be connected to a Hindu agent. Airtel obliged and tweeps started slamming both Singh and the telecom company. When their first official response didn’t seem to have any effect on calming down outraged tweeps, Airtel put up a longer note on the social media platform, titled: “Did Airtel really bow down to a discriminatory request? Maybe you should read this.” It is Apt that Airtel India mentioned a lot about their Training Manual. Because that exactly is where the problem is. Their executives are just trained to paste templates replies without reading content — Joy (@Joydas) June 20, 2018 The note clarified: “For us, Monday was simply a case of two dedicated professionals, Shoaib and Gaganjot, following a dutiful course in their regular work shift... The idea is to minimise the time taken to resolve any customer query. So when a customer writes in and one advisor is busy, the query gets assigned to the next available advisor automatically. Which is exactly what happened with Shoaib and Gaganjot,” Referring to the woman’s request as “unfathomable” Airtel said in the statement: “We are still trying to wrap our head around how one colleague responding on behalf of another is being misconstrued as our ‘acceptance of discrimination’. We did not and we repeat, DID NOT change the advisor because of the unfathomable request from said customer. At Airtel, we never have and never will succumb to differentiating on the basis of religion, ethnicity of caste.” Airtel further posted, that it was because Shoaib wasn’t logged in that Gaganjot took up the case but it was mistakenly seen as bowing down to bigotry. Twitter user @BabuSaheb90 replied: “It looks like justification of that incident more than clarification or apologies. You gonna lose more customers with this. You have not mentioned Pooja once in this letter.” And @Joydas felt this was just a well written public relations draft. He posted: “This is exactly how beautifully crafted PR draft reads like. It has power to make the naive believe in the b******* offered as explanation and also convince them that the ‘client’ is a victim.” @Joydas also added, that like mentioned in their statement, the problem lay with the training manual. He posted: “It is apt that Airtel India mentioned a lot about their training manual. Because that exactly is where the problem is. Their executives are just trained to paste templates replies without reading content.” It is Apt that Airtel India mentioned a lot about their Training Manual. Because that exactly is where the problem is. Their executives are just trained to paste templates replies without reading content — Joy (@Joydas) June 20, 2018 Tweep @rokade_rahul agreed: “Your training/work manual should include sidelining racist/abusive customers. That would help maintain dignity. ‘shift change’ is an excuse.” Some regular customers did sympathise with the customer care agents involved in the issue, while some others said it was common of Airtel’s agents not to look at the history of a conversation thread on social media. @CricFarmer tweeted: “It’s pretty common... Happens across all the companies who are managing customer requests. Now for Shoaib or Gananjot, they didn’t realise how big an issue this might become.” It's pretty common Athar bhai. Happens across all the companies who are managing customer requests. Now for Shoaib or Gananjot, they didn't realise how big an issue this might become. — Abhishek Chaturvedi (@CricFarmer) June 20, 2018 and @satyajeettweets wrote: “Yeah. It is true. Different customer representative comes for same case and I don’t think that they look history. Because we have to repeat our same complaint to every new representative. Most of us face has faced this at some point of time.” Airtel in their note wrote: “While Shoaib and Gaganjot went about working on this case they learnt a harsh lesson. That their religious identity matters. That they should check identities before taking up the responsibility of a service request. Maybe from here on, they will. However, we will resist that. Strongly.” Twitter user @3rd_Handle replied: “Gaganjot should be mature enough to have understood the malicious content of the tweet and contacted superiors before responding to that. But more likely, Gaganjot is innocent because it seems that these types of issues are not covered under your training manual.” Gaganjot should be mature enough to have understood the malicious content of the tweet and contacted superiors before responding to that. But more likely, Gaganjot is innocent because it seems that these types of issues are not covered under your training manual. — Democratically (@3rd_Handle) June 20, 2018 Airtel further posted that their training manuals will never carry instructions to pause and check one’s identity before serving a query. Keeping their letter open-ended, Airtel responded that while Gaganjot, Shoaib and others continue to respond to customer queries, it is up to customers to decide what ‘impression’ the episode has left on their minds. Notably, Airtel signed off with “Official Airtel Spokesperson”, adding that the name has been withheld so people can read it free of religious and caste overtones.<doc-sep>
Pooja Singh, a management professional, had complained about an Airtel service engineer. @airtelindia pathetic Airtel DTH customer service.I raised complaint for reinstallation of DHT.but assigned service engineer miss behaved with me. His words are "Tum Phone Rakho Dobara call mt krna " his number is+91 79-85195094. This is how Airtel is looting it's customer. — Pooja Singh (@pooja303singh) June 18, 2018 Hey, I most definitely appreciate you reaching out here! We'll take a closer look into that & get back shortly with more information. Thank you, Shoaib — Bharti Airtel India (@Airtel_Presence) June 18, 2018 Dear Shohaib, as you're a Muslim and I have no faith in your working ethics because Kuran may have different version for customer service, thus requesting you to assign a Hindu representative for my request. Thanks — Pooja Singh (@pooja303singh) June 18, 2018 Hi Pooja! As discussed, please let me know what days & time frames work best for you so we can talk. Further, please share an alternate number so that I can assist you further with this. Thank you, Gaganjot — Bharti Airtel India (@Airtel_Presence) June 18, 2018 Telecom giant Airtel has put out a sharp and detailed response to a controversy over its response to a woman's outrageous request on Monday for a Hindu customer service representative. Over the past two days, the company has been lacerated over a Twitter exchange that suggested that adviser "Shoaib" was replaced by his colleague "Gaganjot" following the woman's demand.Airtel's response, titled "Did Airtel Really Bow Down to a Discriminatory Request? Maybe You Should Read This", was tweeted this morning by politician Omar Abdullah, who was among those who had called out the company. "For us, Monday was simply a case of two dedicated professionals, Shoaib and Gaganjot, following a dutiful course in their regular work shift...The idea is to minimize the time taken to resolve any customer query. So when a customer writes in and one advisor is busy, the query gets assigned to the next available advisor automatically. Which is exactly what happened with Shoaib and Gaganjot," said Airtel.The exchange that riled Twitter was this:The woman, whose Twitter handle declares her as a management professional, a "Proud Indian" and a "Proud Hindu", had complained about a service engineer. Within minutes, her exchange with Airtel was in wide circulation.The last tweet, signed off by "Gaganjot", set off an outcry.Airtel, responding to the angry posts, said in a statement: "We absolutely do not differentiate between customers, employees and partners on the basis of caste or religion." But the trolling didn't stop. I logged a complain from February about network issue of @Airtel@airtelindia and this is june no improvement at all. Now planning to port from @Airtel_Presence to JIO @reliancejio — Antriksh Sharma (@antrikshakshu) June 20, 2018 Some tagged various service providers with requests to port out their numbers.Referring to the woman's request as "outrageous and unfathomable" in its latest statement Airtel said: "We are still trying to wrap our head around how one colleague responding on behalf of another is being misconstrued as our 'acceptance of discrimination'. We did not and we repeat, DID NOT change the advisor because of the unfathomable request from said customer. At Airtel, we never have and never will succumb to differentiating on the basis of religion, ethnicity of caste. "The company said Shoaib wasn't logged in and Gaganjot took up the case but it was seen as bowing down to bigotry. "While Shoaib and Gaganjot went about working on this case they learnt a harsh lesson. That their religious identity matters. That they should check identities before taking up the responsibility of a service request. Maybe from here on, they will. However, we will resist that. Strongly."