Customer Service OR Customer Demanded Service (II)

Was having some technical glitches when subscribing to a mobile provider data package October this year. After subscribing to the data package from this telco, I didn't get the confirmation SMS, but I thought the subscription was successful and was using the data connections. One other successful subscription triggered my suspision that I was going to get a massive phone bill, spoken to the customer service officers few time to try to sort thing out ...

1. First call: I called too early, I was advised to call them again when I got my bills. (Okay...)

2. Second call (2 days after I got my bill): The customer service officer said my bill was okay, and did not get what my complaint was. After some explanation, only to find out that she was still looking at the previous month bill. (Gosh!) She said she will follow up and call me back again.

3. She did call one week later. (Good follow up) She said she had checked with their technical team, and it's all my fault, coz I did not wait for the subscription confirmation SMS before started to use the data service. (Well, she did her home work, good job!) Hence, they would not offer any goodwill to waive my data usage, they only offered a goodwill reduction of RM8 out of the RM160 data charges. As it was not fully my fault in this case, I had some strong argument with her, and she said she would check (probably with the management) and would call me back again.

4. She called me again 5 minutes later, explained to me (which I have forgotten what now ...) my usage time was from 2 p.m to 6 p.m., and they have to charge me RM48 based on my time usage. Well, this explanation really triggered my anger, if they wanted to be that detail, I was actually using the data connection for 2 hours only i.e. 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. It made me mad when this company is so calculative. I just cut the conversation, "Is this your final offer?", "Yes!", "OK, I do not agree with your offer, but I'll still pay, and I'll get my line out!" I figured out it's no point to be loyal to a telco that's so calculative. (Wow, just found out that I was with this telco for more than 8 years already!)

5. 10 minutes later, the customer service officer called back and said they would waive the full RM160 data charges. Why? Why tried your luck to squeeze the most out of your loyal customer? Why can't just make a goodwill call and make your loyal customer happy, and you'll get more in return? (I was planning to subscribe to the monthly data package then, but changed my mind after this incident. But still have my line with this telco.)

P/S: I'm glad that the government has started mobile number portability, it gives us the consumer lot more bargaining power to demand for customer service. When customer service is not given, you have to exercise your customer right to demand for it.