Customer Service...

... is non-existent in this country.

A colleague was relating his experience with Jaring. He had called up Jaring's customer service line to find out information about registering for their broadband service. He'd put in an order and he was told that he had to go to a Jaring outlet to complete his registration. First thing the customer service agent didn't go was to tell him exactly what documents he was required to bring along to complete the registration. Secondly, when he got there, they couldn't find his order no. Then, when he read the Terms & Conditions on the form, one of the T&Cs said that subscribers can cancel their subscription within 7 days if they are not satisfied with the service. My colleague double checked with the Jaring person. The person said no, subscribers cannot cancel the service and must sign a 1-year contract. And even if they wanted to cancel the service, it would be subjected to a Jaring technician's inspection and their approval of your reason to cancel the service.

I've got a few comments here:

1. The T&Cs are printed in black and white on the form, thus, it holds as an agreement. The Jaring person can say whatever s/he wants but it's all merely verbal and whatever is on the form takes precedence.
2. Which idiot operator would think consumers are so stupid that they can just tell them any grandmother story pertaining to the T&Cs? Waaa, like that, anyone can say anything and disregard the T&Cs then! Where got such thing?!
3. Why do I need the technician to approve of my reason to cancel my service? As far as I'm concerned, I just need to tell you why I'm canceling the service, just so you can TRY to improve your service. But I don't care if you think my reasons are correct or wrong.

In the end, my colleague told the Jaring person that he will try the service and if he's not satisfied, he'll cancel within the 7 days and see what they (Jaring) will do.

My boss related her experience with Streamyx. She had wanted to set up a WiFi network in her home but when she asked the Streamyx people to set it up for her, they said that they didn't know anything about setting up WiFi and they told her to do it herself! Come on lar, you are an internet service provider. Customers can have access to the internet, regardless of whether via WiFi or not, so it is part of your domain to assist your customers in both methods!! With WiFi becoming more common and easily accessible these days, it is only common sense for you to upgrade your staff's knowledge and expertise with the latest technologies in order to serve your customers better. That way, when people see that your staff actually know what they are doing and can offer value-added services, they would be more than happy to recommend your service to their contacts. Which, ultimately, increases your income. But see, these dungus (you know who they are) prefer to lose income and rot in outdated technologies than spend the money to invest in their staff training. The least they could do is refer the customer to their partner who specializes in WiFi. Their installation services are contracted out anyway so what's so difficult about getting a partner specializing in WiFi?

But it's an infinite loop. At the end of the day, if consumers don't voice their dissatisfactions and act to ensure something is done to address their dissatisfactions, the service indsutries will continue with their lackadaisical attitude and continue to bully consumers.

I know I'm guilty of this as well coz sometimes, I'd think "Aiyah, so small matter only. No need to complain lar." or "It's too troublesome/inconvenient to file a complaint lar. Forget it." but then you see, all these small things add up and the more we turn a blind eye, the more daring these people/companies will get. And in the end, we consumers are the ones who will pay for our lack of action.

However, in saying that, the ONE place I wouldn't complain would be in any restaurant. If I don't like the food/service at a restaurant I'm in, I would just not return to the place again and I would not recommend it to anyone I know. Or I will only complain AFTER I've had my meal and plan not to return again ever. Everyone knows why. Heh.

One good experience I had recently was at the LCCT. We'd arrived back from Bangkok and were queueing up at the the immigration autokiosk (is that what it's called?) to scan our passports. There were 2 scanners and two long queues so they opened up another counter to manually scan the passports. The immigration guy who was manning the counter was such a pleasant fella, smiling all the way. And the scanning was very quick. So I was satisfied with that service. Fast and pleasant, that's what I like.

Why can't all services be like that?