Indian people on Twitter were shocked that public hate towards a community was allowed and accommodated by Airtel. Even former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called for a boycott of the services.
The Indian Twitterverse descended on Bharti Airtel on Monday after it seemingly supported a bigot with its tweets. Airtel faced a severe backlash on social media after it was seen accommodating problematic views of a user who wanted a Hindu customer service executive and not the Muslim executive assigned to her. Many threatened to boycott Airtel’s service and made links to Capitalism sponsoring Nazism.
A subscriber with the handle Pooja303singh tweeted a complaint to Airtel about its DTH service and rude customer care and an executive, Shoaib, responded in a customary way to the tweet, offering help.
She responded saying that, “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.”
Airtel complied with her demands and another person named Gaganjot responded to her complaint through the Airtel account. Indian people on Twitter were shocked that public hate towards a community was allowed and accommodated by Airtel. Even former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called for a boycott of the services.
“Dear @Airtel_Presence this conversation is genuine (I’ve seen the timeline myself). I refuse to pay another penny to a company that condones such blatant bigotry. I’m beginning the process of porting my number to another service provider & canceling my DTH & Broadband,” his tweet said.
After five hours, Airtel realised the extent of the backlash and a company spokesperson said, “Dear Pooja, at Airtel, we absolutely do not differentiate between customers, employees and partners on the basis of caste or religion. We would urge you to do the same. Both Shoaib and Gaganjot are part of our customer resolution team. If any customer contacts us for an ongoing service issue then the first available service executive responds in the interest of time. On your query, we will get back to you as soon as there is an update. Thanks – Himanshu, Airtel Response Team Lead.”
“At Airtel, we do not differentiate between customers or our employees/partners on the basis of caste or religion. If a customer contacts us again for an ongoing service issue, then the first available service executive responds in the interest of time. We request everyone not to misinterpret and give it unnecessary religious colour. The said customer has been responded to,” a company representative said.
The woman complainant received a lot of backlash and hatred as well. She allegedly even received rape threats.
Many believe that it was too little and too late and the damage was done. Many wondered what message this encounter sends to the company’s employees about how it treats its many Shoaib’s and Gaganjot’s. Some responses below:
