Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, Tata Teleservices Limited, Indias fastest-growing pan-India dual-technology telecom service provider, has announced a path-breaking Customer Service Charter for Tata Indicom customers, under which the company guarantees pre-determined levels of service and support-and includes Compensation Clauses to pay back customers if the set service levels are not met. This initiative commemorates the 171st birth anniversary of Tata Group Founder, Sir Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, a visionary who sowed the seeds of industrialization in India-and will be immediately available to Tata Indicom customers across all 20 telecom Circles that the company operates in.

The Customer Service Charter, a first-of-its-kind endeavor in the Indian telecom industry, is aimed at ensuring that customer service emerges as a key differentiator for telecom operators. The Charter focuses on several identified aspects of customer interaction, with the larger objective of creating world-class service standards and benchmarks. The Charter will fulfill customer commitments-five salient propositions have been identified by Tata Teleservices Limited to begin with-and Compensation Clauses have been built in, wherein the company will pay back customers if pre-set service levels on the chosen parameters are not met.

Paying a tribute to the Tata Group Founder at the launch of the Customer Service Charter, Mr. Anil Sardana, Managing Director of Tata Teleservices Limited, said, On the occasion of our Groups Founder Day, we pledge to give every customer his rightful due. Sir JN Tata was a visionary who dared to think beyond his time, and his dynamic legacy still inspires us to pursue the highest standards of excellence in every endeavor. The introduction of this Customer Service Charter, therefore, is a matter of immense pride for us, and a tremendous responsibility for us to shoulder-as we will be putting our very business behind our commitment to our customers

The Charter is a reaffirmation of TTSLs commitment to the person who makes the biggest difference to our lives-the Customer. At the Tata Group, we strongly believe that it is our solemn duty to do everything within our competency to give customers a quality network experience and state-of-art service and support. This Charter, the first-ever in the history of Indian telecoms, has been conceived to achieve these objectives with a promise to compensate customers if we donot live up to our commitments, Mr. Pankaj Sethi, President, Corporate Services, Tata Teleservices Limited, said.

The Customer Service Charter includes five customer commitments, namely The Bill Dispute Commitment, The Call Drop Commitment, The Handset Replacement Commitment, The VAS Commitment and The Call-Back Commitment.

    1 The Bill Dispute Commitment offers resolution of every bill dispute within three working days, failing which TTSL will compensate its customers with Rs 25 for every additional day taken to resolve the complaint;
    2 The Call Drop Commitment promises call drops less than the 1.5 per cent of total calls made in a month, failing which the company will refund 2.5% of the customers last billed amount;
   3 The Handset Replacement Commitment ensures that loaner handsets will be issued to customers in case the handset cannot be repaired over the counter at TTSLs I-Care Centre;
    4The VAS Commitment offers free trial of any chosen Value-Added Service, before buying the product; and
   5The Call-Back Commitment promises that call centers will be accessible to customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week and that calls will be answered within 90 seconds, failing which the company will call the customer back within two hours.

Notes to Editor

About Tata Teleservices Limited

Tata Teleservices Limited is one of Indias leading private telecom service providers, having a pan-India presence across all of Indias 22 telecom Circles. The company offers integrated telecom solutions to its customers under brands - Tata Indicom, Tata DOCOMO, Tata Photon and Tata Walky and uses both the CDMA and GSM technology platform(s) for its wireless networks. Tata Teleservices Limited, along with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited, operates in more than 420,000 towns and villages across the country, serving over 60 million subscribers. After its collaboration with Japans NTT DOCOMO in November 2008, Tata Teleservices has so far launched GSM services under the TATA DOCOMO brand name in 15 telecom Circles, and the remaining part of the country is also expected to be covered shortly. The company recently launched a new brand on the GSM platform-T24-in partnership with Indian retail giant Future Group. Tata Teleservices bouquet of telephony services includes mobile services, wireless desktop phones, public booth telephony and Wireline services.