Caselet Title: When Promises Fall Short—Customer-Defined Service Standards and the Airtel Dilemma – Dr. Purnajit Chatterjee | ISME: Best MBA/PGDM, MCA, BBA, BCom, BCA, PhD Colleges in Bangalore

29th January 2026

External Publication Link on Medium”

https://medium.com/@purnajitc/case-study-when-promises-fall-short-customer-defined-service-standards-and-the-airtel-dilemma-3d12d301d48f

Course: Services Marketing
Concepts/Theories: How the gap between the Service Level promised and actually delivered needs to be monitored and closed to achieve higher customer satisfaction ratings, leading to customer loyalty.
Teaching Note:

This case invites students to investigate the disconnection between brand promises and operational realities, evaluate the significance of customer-centric service standards, and suggest actionable interventions for India’s evolving mobile industry

Discussion Questions:

What are the main differences between traditional (company-defined) versus customer-defined service standards in the mobile industry? How do these differences impact the design of Airtel’s service delivery and recovery mechanisms?
How do persistent service issues—such as poor coverage, call drops, and slow data speeds—affect customer loyalty, word-of-mouth, and Airtel’s market position? Support your analysis with relevant service marketing theories.
As a telecom service manager at Airtel, what steps would you implement to better align operational performance metrics with customer expectations in urban and rural markets? Illustrate your answer with concrete examples and processes.
What role do social media and real-time feedback platforms play in shaping and enforcing customer-defined standards? How should Airtel adapt its service management and communication strategies in response?

Case Synopsis

India’s competitive mobile communications industry is driven not just by pricing and reach, but increasingly by customer-defined service standards—criteria that reflect evolving expectations of a digitally empowered nation. Airtel, one of India’s largest mobile operators, has consistently advertised superior network quality but faces frequent criticism for poor coverage, dropped calls, voice clarity lapses, and data speed inconsistencies. This case explores the service gaps in Airtel’s value promise versus user experience, dissecting why these failings persist despite hefty investments and regulatory oversight. Students are called to analyze how customer-defined standards reshape operations, quality measures, and recovery actions for telecom brands in India.

Introduction

With over a billion mobile subscribers, India is one of the world’s largest and most dynamic telecom markets. Airtel, a prominent industry leader, has been at the forefront of network expansion and service innovation. Despite these strengths, rising digital dependency, remote work trends, and the push towards 5G have heightened customer expectations: seamless coverage, crystal-clear calls, and lightning-fast data are now “hygiene factors”—non-negotiable benchmarks by which users assess service quality.

However, persistent issues with network reliability have brought the customer-defined service standards debate to the fore. Social media and feedback platforms flood with complaints about dropped calls, dead zones in “covered” areas, voice distortion, and unexpectedly low data speeds, even in urban centers. Such dissatisfaction directly affects operator choice, customer loyalty, and net promoter scores in a hyper-competitive environment

Airtel: Brand, Growth, and Service Commitments

Airtel is synonymous with connectivity and digital access across India, boasting tens of millions of subscribers and a reputation for network reach and innovation. The brand’s promise—“India’s best network”—is built on substantial investments in spectrum, towers, and technology upgrades. Airtel pioneered VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling in many markets and frequently wins awards for data speeds and broadband coverage.

Yet, the company’s ambitious rural and pan-India expansion has magnified the challenge of delivering uniform service levels. Regulatory audits, media stories, and consumer surveys consistently highlight four critical service issues:

Poor Network Coverage: Users report “no signal” or zero bars in homes, offices, and transit routes supposedly within Airtel’s robust coverage maps.
Frequent Call Drops: Call connections that abruptly drop, especially in metros and high-density areas, have become routine annoyances.
Inferior Voice Quality: Voice distortion, echo, or one-way audio plagues otherwise “connected” calls, hampering both personal and professional conversations.
Slow Data Connections: Inconsistent or sluggish mobile internet speeds—especially during peak hours—leave customers frustrated, even those on advanced 5G/4G plans.

Customer-Defined Service Standards: What Do Users Value?

Historically, telcos focused on technical metrics: call drop rates, coverage percentages, or peak download speeds. The modern Indian consumer, however, measures service by personal benchmarks—whether calls work reliably from home, if a video loads instantly, or whether online classes or payments are uninterrupted.

A 2025 survey found that nearly 59% of prepaid and 56% of postpaid mobile subscribers were dissatisfied with their telecom provider, primarily due to frequent call drops, inconsistent speeds, and poor customer support. On social forums, users emphasized:

Practical, location-based coverage (not just theoretical range)
Consistent service throughout the day
Transparent, actionable complaint resolution
Proactive alerts for outages or maintenance
Honest, clearly communicated data speed expectations

Notably, many consumers compare mobile calls unfavourably to OTT voice services (like WhatsApp), which sometimes offer superior clarity and stability.

The Vicious Cycle of Complaints

Across major Indian cities, media reports and downtime tracker platforms like Down detector echo similar consumer distress. Every time a mass outage or data disruption hits, users head to social platforms to vent. Some threaten to switch to competitors (Jio or Vi), decreasing brand stickiness and amplifying reputational risk. A particularly viral 2025 outage saw over 3,500 real-time complaints logged in one city within hours.

Airtel’s typical response—public apologies, assurances of technical teams working urgently, and occasional reimbursement promises—often falls short of restoring trust, especially when outages repeat or user grievances go unresolved.

Regulatory and Market Pressures

Regulatory authorities, notably TRAI, have mandated public geospatial coverage maps and penalized providers for service lapses. However, coverage “maps” rarely reflect granular service quality, and technical audits alone can’t ensure day-to-day user satisfaction. Penalties for call drops or failed subscriber verification (as in Tamil Nadu, 2025) indicate mounting official intolerance, but ultimate service improvement still hinges on customer-centricity.

Why Do Quality Gaps Persist?

Several challenges undermine Airtel’s ability to meet customer-defined standards:

Geographic and Infrastructure Diversity: India’s terrain, urban density, and infrastructure limitations make uniform coverage technically and economically daunting.
Rapid User Growth & Tech Upgrades: Explosive subscriber additions and shifting from 3G to 5G strain legacy systems, causing optimization and handoff failures.
Resource Allocation: Expansion into underserved markets sometimes leads to bandwidth tradeoffs, degrading service at the edges of networks.
Customer Service Limitations: Complaint handling often fails to close the feedback loop, as call centers provide templated responses instead of targeted solutions.

Redefining Service Excellence: The Way Forward

As digital integration deepens, telecoms like Airtel must embrace customer-defined service standards as strategic imperatives—not regulatory check-boxes. Emerging industry best practices include:

Crowdsourcing real-time quality data from user apps.
Personalizing outage alerts and resolution timelines.
Prioritizing local, contextual quality improvements over broad averages.
Regularly benchmarking competitor performance, including OTT alternatives.
Creating proactive customer recovery protocols (rapid credits/refunds, escalation, continuous updates).

Telecom service in India’s mobile landscape is increasingly won—or lost—on the field of responsiveness, transparency, and customer-driven improvement.

References:

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Caselet Title: When Promises Fall Short—Customer-Defined Service Standards and the Airtel Dilemma – Dr. Purnajit Chatterjee