I have been a Paytm customer for mobile recharges and bill payments since 2011 and I never faced a time when they were slow to respond to issues. The customer support's response time was typically in minutes and a complete resolution could be expected in few hours. They even called me few times after I tweeted about my experience almost immediately and explained the situation. This was a key differentiator for Paytm and having tried several other recharge portals and experiencing awful support from all of them, I stuck to Paytm for 95% of my mobile recharge needs. Rest of the 5% was done through others just for the sake of offers. However in the recent times, I feel all this is changing for worse - particularly after Paytm expanded to become a marketplace selling various items. Expansion into a new space is certainly good and I wish Paytm does great but my sincere appeal is to keep up the same spirit in serving customers.
My Experience
Yesterday, I tried recharging my Dad's BSNL mobile number for Rs. 550. The transaction failed four times in a row (the fifth one much later) and thankfully the money was being immediately refunded to Paytm cash. I would like to note that the attempts were made after time gaps and every single time the failure was instant.
I remember times when Paytm used to notify users with informative messages before attempting to proceed with a recharge: "We are currently experiencing high failure rates with BSNL Andhra Pradesh. Please try after some time". No such messages are shown these days and a user has to go through all the steps just to see a failure message! Sensing some trouble at operator end, I decided to approach Paytm on twitter. Recently they had even launched a dedicated support handle (which I had appreciated then) to solve customer issues. It took one hour for them to respond seeking the order number(s) and then I received no response whatsoever!
Looks like many others are observing a similar trend w.r.t. Paytm's customer care.
Like Nilesh and others, even I am contemplating a switch to Operator Portals. In my case, BSNL Portal now offers special recharges which was not the case in 2011. Most of the private operators always had a reliable recharge portal.
Paytm or any customer facing brand must remember this (Source):
96% of unhappy customers don’t complain, and 91% will simply leave and never come back.
Do you use Paytm for recharges? Did you experience any changes with their support quality? Let us know.
