In this Paytm.com Review I write my experience with Paytm support, which I rate as extremely poor, my first ticket was answered after 3 days, there was no apology for the delay and the next response took 11 and 10 days to be answered. Please read below to understand why I have reached this conclusion which is quite contrary to what Paytm claims here.

My affair with Paytm.com started back in June 2012, between then and now, I have used Paytm.com a total of 103 times. Since I began using Paytm, I was totally in love with the website, the ease of use, the clutter free minimalist design reminded me of another one of my favourite website, “Cleartrip.com”. For every recharge the only go to website was Paytm.com for me. I had also vouched for it over the years to a lot of friends.

I never had an issue with the website as I was informed about any delays in recharging and if the recharging failed, I would immediately be refunded my amount in Paytm cash which I could use for another recharge or withdraw it to my bank. Only recently, on the 7th of January 2014, I faced an issue in regards to logging in, the website would not allow me to login and I could not use the service, I however had some cash already in my Paytm account.

I had no other option but to contact the customer support, so on the Jan 07 17:26, I raised a ticket informing the support about my issue and that I was not able to login. Expecting the same kind of levels parallel to the websites performance, efficiency and ease of use, I was expecting a response to come across in a few minutes. Minutes turned to hours and hours to day but I did not receive a response. On the same evening I seached for other websites that offer similar services, I came across Mobikwik, although I found the colours a bit daunting, I found the usability and ease of use on par with Paytm.com. I recharged my mobile and then forgot all about this Paytm.com support request.

On Jan 10 11:24, I received a response from one Mr. Abbas, he responded in the below manner;

———-
Hi there,
We are happy to assist you. We understand that you were unable to login into your Paytm account and we feel sorry about it.We would like to inform you that we have unblocked your account and you will now be able to use it hassle-free.

In case you still face issues logging into your account, please let us know by replying to this e-mail. Thank you for being patient.

I care,
Abbas
———-

After taking three full days to respond to my ticket, Mr. Abbas fails to acknowledge the delay (unless this is the norm at Paytm.com and they have a turn around time of 3 days to unblock accounts and respond to tickets), he fails to let me know why my account was blocked in the first place and he acknowledges me as if I were his friend, now, I do not have a problem being addressed as “Hi there” but how does Mr. Abbas know that I am someone who can be addressed as such, I could be a 60 year old senior citizen, or I could be someone who could get offended when someone addresses me as such.

The concern in regards to the way of addressing is that, Mr. Abbas knows my name and he could have addressed me as Hi Jeewan, or Hello Jeewan or something that will change the complexion of the his email to a more personal level.

I take offence at the above pointed issues and being someone who loves to write reviews and access customer service at a deeper lever, I write back to Mr. Abbas on Jan 10 12:16

———-
Hi there (as addressed by you,
Dear Abbas, (as I would address)

I would like to know if this is the normal turn around time for Paytm to respond to urgent customer queries? 3 days to respond to a ticket in the internet world is like taking 3 months in the real world which is ridiculous. I would like to say that you have lost a customer due to your
delay, not that it will make a difference to Paytm but I have been with Paytm since you first sprouted.

It is also a disgrace that you fail to acknowledge the delay, pathetic is what I would like to describe your customer support, however, thanks to you, I found Mobikwik, with which I am in love with. Obviously, I had However, it will do Paytm a world of good if you can sort out your speed, efficiency and courteousness.
———-

I receive a response on Jan 21 17:11, yes, that’s after 11 days of me writing back to the customer supports response. The completely illogical response is as below;

———-
Hi Jeewan,

Thanks for writing in.We understand that you are experiencing issues on our website. Our systems was going through an upgrade and we apologize for the inconvenience you have faced. Thank you for being a valuable customer.

I care,
Abbas
———-

After such a delay and after receiving a completely generic response, most probably a copy pasted one, I lose it and I respond as below on Jan 21 17:24

———-
Hello Abbas,

Can you kindly put me across to your seniors in line like your manager or head of support at Paytm. It is OK if they gave me a call on 90xxxxxxxx or you can provide me with their direct contact details please.
———-

The above response seems to have been completely ignored as I receive a ticket closure feedback, this is generally what happens on ZenDesk, the platform Paytm.com is currently using for customer support.

So on the Feb 01 15:51, after 10 days of writing my last response, I write up a follow up as below informing Mr. Abbas that my request has been ignored and I just need to speak to someone higher up so I can let them know the poor levels/quality of customer support being dished out to Paytm’s customers.

On Feb 02 05:49, I receive a response from Mr. Deepak, asking me for clarification on the issue, I wrote back to him on the 4th explaining the delays and generic responses, and guess what, on the Feb 05 04:35, I get a response from Mr. Deepak explaining that there were technical issues when my first ticket was raised and hence the delay was caused and from no on in, they will adhere to the time frame.

Even after this response, I am unsatisfied that these customer support agents have not escalated the issue and do not want me to put across to one of their superiors, its either that or the superiors or manager just asked them to deal with it.

In this Paytm.com Review, I am not trying to say that Paytm.com is a bad website for mobile recharges, I am only expressing my personal experience and opinion. I am disappointed that the company I adored, I recommended to many has such cheap and low customer support standards. The English used in the support tickets is extremely of poor standards, this show that the company does not have a robust hiring system, the responses are not addressed and are not written appropriately in relevance to the issue, this shows the company has extremely low training practices and the delays caused can only mean that they are also severely short staffed and the employees are completely low on team morale and efficiency.

I never realised that there would be anything wrong with Paytm but a quick search on Google reveals that there are many dissatisfied customers. All I needed to stay as Paytm customer was to talk to someone higher up or for them to email me or call me or give me contact details, that did not happen and I am saddened at how I am leaving Paytm.

I have since moved on to Mobikwik, I do have some cash left in Paytm which I will use up but my recommendation is to move out of Paytm while you do not yet face problems like I did and am having to scamper at crucial moments to another websites.