Message From Airtel CEO – Doing Our Bit To Fight COVID-19

Dear Customer,

Over the last few days we have all been inundated with what is happening all around the world on COVID-19. Clearly there is a lot that we don’t know and the uncertainty weighs on all of us. Our hearts go out to everyone who has been impacted by the virus either directly or indirectly. At this point, we know that your first priority must be your and your family’s health and well-being, and we wish that you stay safe and healthy.

At the same time, our hearts also go out to those at the front line, medical staff and care givers who put themselves at risk to do all it takes to serve others. In much the same way, we at Airtel provide an essential service, keeping our customers and the country connected. Therefore at Airtel, we are doing everything we can to keep our employees and partners safe. This is so that they can work to keep you, your businesses and families connected. We know there is a great responsibility on us, as connectivity providers, to do what it takes to make sure everything works at this time of stress. Towards that end, I wanted to share some of the steps we are taking and what these means for you:

1) Digital Access : All our Mobile, WiFi and TV services can be bought / recharged online through our App (Search : Airtel Thanks App on Playstore / Appstore) as well as our website www.airtel.in. During this difficult time, we encourage you to use our digital channels, instead of physical stores.

2) Network Experience: We understand that your network needs would evolve during this difficult time, as you work from home. We have taken several measures to improve your experience – from accelerating our roll outs, upgrading quality of service where possible and advancing our investments to meet your requirements. Also, if you want to know more on how to make your Work-from-Home experience seamless, click here.

3) Workforce Safety: We are fully committed to ensuring that our employees and partners stay safe. For any Airtel employee that you may interact with – at an Airtel store or at your home – I want to re-assure you that we have taken all appropriate health and safety measures. We have not only stepped up sanitation and provided masks to all our field force but are also taking proactive precautionary quarantine measures, as and where required.

4) Operational Redundancy: We have built a full-fledged contingency plan to deal with any event, including, if it comes to it, quarantining any of our critical Network Operating Centers, Call Centers, etc. We have enabled each of these locations to operate in a distributed as well as virtual way. Every team has also been broken into two so that we can reduce the number of people on a site in order to make the workplace safer, and in turn continue to serve your network needs.

5) Self/ Digital Care: While we are doing all we can to ensure that our call centers are running and continue to care for you, we encourage you to use Airtel website or Airtel Thanks app to raise your queries and complaints, in case we need to lower the number of employees visiting a call centre at a given point of time.

6) Partner Alignment: We have also reviewed contingency plans of all our partners, our managed service providers, tower companies, equipment providers, call centers and software providers to ensure that we are all coordinated and operate as a single unit.

We will continue to assess the situation and take appropriate action so that you have no disruptions and can stay connected with your loved ones. We would love to hear your ideas on how we can go the extra mile and help you in this situation. To share your ideas please reply to this mail.

Yours Sincerely,
Gopal Vittal
CEO Airtel

—CT Bureau