Airtel’s Diwali Awareness Campaign Backfires, Angry Customers Threaten To Boycott Its Services

OfficeChai Team

All of Airtel’s troubles aren’t caused by Reliance Jio — its own social media team isn’t helping.

On the occasion of Diwali, Airtel’s Twitter handle put out two tweets. Instead of simply wishing its customers a happy Diwali, Airtel sought to impart some awareness as well. One tweet urged users to “join us in the fight against pollution”, while another featured a mute button, and wished customers a “noise-free Diwali.”

Many Airtel users, though, were less than impressed with the company’s sermonizing on a happy occasion. 

https://twitter.com/abhishekrajaram/status/921056507914887169

 

Others pointed out the hypocrisy of the company — on other major festivals, Airtel had simply wished people, not tried to judge their behaviour.

Soon, people were threatening to leave Airtel for its stance on Diwali.

https://twitter.com/Mayurgoakar/status/921065315198410752

And several people mentioned that they’d port to Jio. Jio gleefully began replying on Airtel’s Diwali’s status, giving people instructions on how to move to their service.

And it didn’t just stop there — people started sharing images of them having cut their Airtel connections.

And there were plenty of burns.

https://twitter.com/GruhamB/status/920951909392855042

https://twitter.com/ProfYogendra/status/920727342166749184

 

The protests even spilled over on the Play Store, where people began giving one-star ratings to Airtel’s app.

boycott airtel

 

At this point, Airtel can ill-afford to antagonize a large part of its userbase. The telecom provider has been struggling against Jio’s onslaught — its profits have fallen 72% since Jio began offering its high-speed plans, and it’s had to introduce low-cost plans of its own to compete. And it’s a not a smart social media strategy to condescend to people when they’re trying to celebrate a happy occasion — Airtel’s learning it the hard way.