I am currently still quite furious about the customer service level and policy of my ISP.
This is a long weekend in Hong Kong, and I need to ensure some tasks has been completed before I get back to work on Tuesday (the next working day). So, I took my work laptop home and try to connect to office network using VPN on home ISP carrier.
While my home laptop works perfectly fine and got the connection straight away, the work laptop cannot. So, I tried to seek technical support from my ISP. It was 10:15 pm then. Well, anyone would agree with me that this is perhaps the start of the golden period of web surfing for home users. But, guess what? This company, Hutchison Global Communicatoin 和記 is so "customer friendly" that technical support finishes work at 10:00 pm.
So, I ended up being connected to General Customer Enquiry Hotline, which operates for longer hours. By the way, what is the use of having General Customer Enquiry on when Technical Support is off? Does a lot of people ask about their bill during the night time?
Anyway, I was told that there was no technical support, and I asked whether some technical support can be arranged because I need to connect to the office network in time to catch up with my overseas colleagues. Nothing can be arranged of course; that's not in their books.
So, I asked whether his boss could arrange something for me as I need to be online then or else I miss the opportunity. He tried asked his boss, but replied that nothing could be arranged. He tried all he could to help me, with whatever minimal technical skills he had, it was not sufficient to solve the problem.
I asked to talk to his boss, but I gathered his boss was too chicken to confront me. I said I would stay on the line until his boss come on, but he pleaded with me to stop it there, saying his boss was on some other business at that time.
I insisted waiting, and his boss only came to attend to me at around 10:50 pm. By that time, my frustration and dissatifaction was mounted up to the extent that I insisted on having a written apology.
Both the officer and the supervisor informed repeatedly that it was not in their company's policy to provide any written apology, email or in paper.
I asked whether they could provide a written account of the incident as a minimum so that I have proof in case my own boss asked why I didn't attend to my own work. But again it was a NO.
I asked whether they could provide the recording to me, only to find out that I need to fill a form and pay HKD 120 for something that I own as much as they do.
I asked whether the supervisor could escalate to his boss and see if any of the options I have asked for could be arranged. Still NO.
Although the NO's were given quite politely, a NO is still a NO. And I got more and more agitated as time passed.
I debriefed to the officer and the supervisor at various points of time during the conversation that this was not a good way to handle a customer. I told them the basics of Customer Service Excellence as I learnt it during my MBA course, saying that the longer they avoided to resolve my problem and/or soothe my anger, the worst the situation would be.
A service incident without a proper and instant recovery would result in more problem than going outside of the company rules, resulting in as much as damaging the company's reputation. And still, they didn't take heed.
So, in the end, I took the case number and the supervisor's name, asked the supervisor to get his boss to call me and apologize, lodged a complaint at the HK Consumer Council and wrote this blog. See how a small thing, probably the customer was in the wrong even, could build up to!!
I am not sure what will come out of this, but it is really not the way to treat a customer.
A customer is a customer and no matter whether it's his/her problem, you still have to try all you can to help him/her, even if it's not within the written rules.
Why is Ritz Carlton being used as the benchmark of customer service? It's because the staff owns a problem and have the latitude to make up with the customer. Each is empowered to provide remedies within a certain limit, which normally is sufficient to far exceed the expectation of the customer in question for the service incident.
There is really no customer-centric service culture in HK. All they have are company-centric measures. If it is not convenient to the company, they say that it's not in their books. Easy?! Easy for them, but just as easy to agitate customers...
What are we doing, HK? We are converting to a service economy, but what service are we providing? Is this really sufficient??????
No comments:
Post a Comment