I've had a very painful morning with Singtel.
Background: I recently decied to swap over to the Mio plan, from my individual plans, in order to "save" money. As it turns out, because my broadband contract had not yet run out, they banged me with a 30 months contract with Mio, instead of 24 months. Extra 6 months, I thought it was OK.
THen they insisted on giving me a new adsl modem which I do not need (my current one works just fine), but they insisted, and so I relented. I swore to the counter girl that all the technician will do is to come over, and when I tell him or her I don't want any of the settings compromised, he will switch off and on my modem and declare that I am on the Mio plan. I was giving this innocent girl such a hard time that I agreed to the stupidity of Singtel and made an appointment for the technician to come over to flip the power switch. I mean, the technician has gotta earn a living right?
Anyways, today is the day that technician is supposed to come over to flip the stupid switch, and it is now 1 hour past the appointment time. He was supposed to come between 0900 - 1100 (2 hours of opportunity cost is alright I guess). At 1030, I call up the Singtel Mio hotline to say the technician has not come and that I will be around for another 30 minutes so the tech better hustle. At 11 am, I receive a call from the Singtel call center, and by this time I have had it with the incompetence of the technician (he had not shown up) and had grown tired of speaking to a junior staff at the call center, who could not answer anything more challenging.
So I got put onto his manager Laura, who sounded a bit more capable. She promised to check the backend to see what was needed to be done to get me on the Mio plan, so I agree to hang up and let her check. She calls back to say that I AM on the Mio plan, and that the technician still needs to come by to install the new modem (by this time I could have strangle anyone from Singtel who kept wanting to stuff the stupid modem down my throat!), so I asked what so great about this new modem.
She was ready this time. I was a difficult prick of a customer now, so she brought on her technical guy. Before the guy went any further with his explanation, I interjected that I am an engineer and asked if he was a techie, so which he replied in the affirmative. So I let him do his song and dance, and to my dismay, the best he could do is new warranty and a new power supply. I mean, what the.... I was hoping for better spec, so I asked if I was getting a gigabit ethernet, am I getting the whole wireless alphabet soup of a, b, g and pre-n? No, it was the same as my current modem, just with a new warranty and new power supply.
Really, what the.... so I said thank you, but just get the technician to drop off the modem and we shall all get on with our lives!
Singtel, I know you have a monopoly on the home line, broadband, and mobile phone. You are the big giant that everyone quivers when they come up against you. But heed this. The next time a customer wants to know why that technician have to come to the house to flip the stupid power switch; be prepared with an answer.
When the customer says he is happy with his modem, don't insist on shoving (I meant ramming) a new modem down his throat. Give him a shopping voucher, or better yet, pledge the amount equivalent of the modem (50 or a 100 bucks) to a charity of his choice. Let's not generate more carbon and trash the earth by a) getting a technician down to flip a switch, and b) to get him to drive to my place, and c) to throw away a perfectly good working condition modem, all for the sake of changing to a new plan.
THis is stupidity at its pinnacle!
And since I am on your case, why not give me the 2009 F1 race ticket for my troubles?
Background: I recently decied to swap over to the Mio plan, from my individual plans, in order to "save" money. As it turns out, because my broadband contract had not yet run out, they banged me with a 30 months contract with Mio, instead of 24 months. Extra 6 months, I thought it was OK.
THen they insisted on giving me a new adsl modem which I do not need (my current one works just fine), but they insisted, and so I relented. I swore to the counter girl that all the technician will do is to come over, and when I tell him or her I don't want any of the settings compromised, he will switch off and on my modem and declare that I am on the Mio plan. I was giving this innocent girl such a hard time that I agreed to the stupidity of Singtel and made an appointment for the technician to come over to flip the power switch. I mean, the technician has gotta earn a living right?
Anyways, today is the day that technician is supposed to come over to flip the stupid switch, and it is now 1 hour past the appointment time. He was supposed to come between 0900 - 1100 (2 hours of opportunity cost is alright I guess). At 1030, I call up the Singtel Mio hotline to say the technician has not come and that I will be around for another 30 minutes so the tech better hustle. At 11 am, I receive a call from the Singtel call center, and by this time I have had it with the incompetence of the technician (he had not shown up) and had grown tired of speaking to a junior staff at the call center, who could not answer anything more challenging.
So I got put onto his manager Laura, who sounded a bit more capable. She promised to check the backend to see what was needed to be done to get me on the Mio plan, so I agree to hang up and let her check. She calls back to say that I AM on the Mio plan, and that the technician still needs to come by to install the new modem (by this time I could have strangle anyone from Singtel who kept wanting to stuff the stupid modem down my throat!), so I asked what so great about this new modem.
She was ready this time. I was a difficult prick of a customer now, so she brought on her technical guy. Before the guy went any further with his explanation, I interjected that I am an engineer and asked if he was a techie, so which he replied in the affirmative. So I let him do his song and dance, and to my dismay, the best he could do is new warranty and a new power supply. I mean, what the.... I was hoping for better spec, so I asked if I was getting a gigabit ethernet, am I getting the whole wireless alphabet soup of a, b, g and pre-n? No, it was the same as my current modem, just with a new warranty and new power supply.
Really, what the.... so I said thank you, but just get the technician to drop off the modem and we shall all get on with our lives!
Singtel, I know you have a monopoly on the home line, broadband, and mobile phone. You are the big giant that everyone quivers when they come up against you. But heed this. The next time a customer wants to know why that technician have to come to the house to flip the stupid power switch; be prepared with an answer.
When the customer says he is happy with his modem, don't insist on shoving (I meant ramming) a new modem down his throat. Give him a shopping voucher, or better yet, pledge the amount equivalent of the modem (50 or a 100 bucks) to a charity of his choice. Let's not generate more carbon and trash the earth by a) getting a technician down to flip a switch, and b) to get him to drive to my place, and c) to throw away a perfectly good working condition modem, all for the sake of changing to a new plan.
THis is stupidity at its pinnacle!
And since I am on your case, why not give me the 2009 F1 race ticket for my troubles?
No comments:
Post a Comment