My last post, "Indifferent Strokes from Business Folks",dealt with the poor customer service that I received from Sky Cable and
how difficult it can be to get for many (most?) companies in the
Philippines to take customer complaints seriously.
But that is not
always the case.
On Oct.10 I purchased a take out
order consisting of a pork liempo and pork barbecue stick meal at Reyes
Barbecue which is a local chain that specializes in grilled native
dishes. Each item came with a packet of atsara (papaya relish). It
turns out that the contents of both packets were spoiled. I returned to
the store to notify the manager, but there was none on duty. So I told a
line employee instead about the matter and emphasized that their entire
supply of this product is likely inedible,
I wasn't
asking for my money back as the item in question was just a small part
of the purchase. Yet I felt that the restaurant should be made aware of
this quality control problem. My thinking was this time it was just a
bad batch of atsara, which was easily identifiable even without opening
the packet. But next time a customer might unknowingly wind up with an
order that has a much more serious food safety problem, such as bad
meat.
For good measure I went to the Reyes website
and filed a narrative of my issue in the "Contact Us" option.
However, I didn't really expect anything to come of it, which has been
my experience in filing complaints or making inquiries with other
businesses this way. Imagine my surprise when just a few hours later I
received a reply from the manager/owner of the franchise where I had
made the purchase. She apologized profusely for the incident which she
acknowledged was inexcusable and said that the employee whom I
originally discussed the matter had indeed brought it to her attention,
but she didn't know how to reach me as I didn't leave any contact
information at the restaurant. She even offered to furnish a new order
of the above items on the house. I took her up on it, and this time
everything in the order was fine, including the atsara which was fresh
and crispy.
In short, a strong indication of a
company's integrity and reliability is not just the service that it
provides for customers in the regular course of day to day business but
moreover how they respond when they've made a mistake. The respective attitudes of Sky Cable and Reyes Barbecue in this type of situation are as different as night and day as is their worthiness of patronage by the public..
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Indifferent Strokes from Business Folks
Here is a narrative about bad customer service. It reflects the
attitude of many companies in the Philippines which have made an art of
inefficiency.
Our cable TV and Internet provider Global Destiny was recently taken over by another company, Sky Cable Corp. It would be too much for subscribers to expect a seamless transition in such a changeover, and sure enough, Sky failed to record some of our subscription payments in the course of the records transfer between the two companies and sent us a past due notice in early September threatening disconnection of service even though our accounts were in fact paid current.
In response to this warning, I immediately phoned Sky. They claimed that Global Destiny is still responsible for billing and referred me to the Global Destiny customer service number which turned out to be unreachable. I called Sky back but they still refused to assist. I pointed out that they now own our accounts and even changed the account numbers to accommodate their system, and most tellingly "Sky Cable" not "Global Destiny" is the name of the payee on their bill. Finally the representative appeared to relent and said they would look into the matter and call me back the next day. Of course, she didn't. Such is the state of customer service in the Philippines. Employees will tell you what you want to hear. This type of stroking is rooted in the local culture. But meanwhile, these reassurances sound so convincing that you really believe your grievance is about to be rectified.
So a few weeks ago I reported our problem to the regulatory agency that oversees cable businesses, the Department of Telecommunications, and received an email acknowledgment that it had been received. While that's pending, a few days ago I asked the administrator's office of our condominium building whether they had heard of any new information as we are not alone in our complaint. There were no new developments, but they gave me a contact person at Sky to whom I texted a brief explanation of our problem. She promised to call back on Oct. 3 but that didn't happen.
This morning I finally received a corrected bill for each account.This afternoon I also received a text from the contact person at Sky requesting that I refer my complaint to her supervisor. I understand if the rep felt that my situation was beyond the limits of her job responsibilities , but as a matter of business courtesy, the supervisor should be the one to initiate the contact.
Obviously, I'm glad that the situation has apparently been resolved, but if I hadn't persisted in getting it it fixed and wasted hours of my time in doing so, rather than looking at an accurate statement, I might now be looking at a "cable-less" blue screen on my TV and at a "cannot connect" message on my computer for my Internet service.
The moral of the story is that if ever you have a service issue like this one, don't assume that it will be resolved with one call to or interface with a representative. If the complaint isn't properly addressed on the second contact, get a supervisor or manager involved and follow up regularly. Escalate the matter and file a complaint with the appropriate regulatory agency if necessary. These steps won't guarantee success in getting issues settled in your favor, but failure to stay on top of them will almost ensure a disappointing outcome.
Our cable TV and Internet provider Global Destiny was recently taken over by another company, Sky Cable Corp. It would be too much for subscribers to expect a seamless transition in such a changeover, and sure enough, Sky failed to record some of our subscription payments in the course of the records transfer between the two companies and sent us a past due notice in early September threatening disconnection of service even though our accounts were in fact paid current.
In response to this warning, I immediately phoned Sky. They claimed that Global Destiny is still responsible for billing and referred me to the Global Destiny customer service number which turned out to be unreachable. I called Sky back but they still refused to assist. I pointed out that they now own our accounts and even changed the account numbers to accommodate their system, and most tellingly "Sky Cable" not "Global Destiny" is the name of the payee on their bill. Finally the representative appeared to relent and said they would look into the matter and call me back the next day. Of course, she didn't. Such is the state of customer service in the Philippines. Employees will tell you what you want to hear. This type of stroking is rooted in the local culture. But meanwhile, these reassurances sound so convincing that you really believe your grievance is about to be rectified.
So a few weeks ago I reported our problem to the regulatory agency that oversees cable businesses, the Department of Telecommunications, and received an email acknowledgment that it had been received. While that's pending, a few days ago I asked the administrator's office of our condominium building whether they had heard of any new information as we are not alone in our complaint. There were no new developments, but they gave me a contact person at Sky to whom I texted a brief explanation of our problem. She promised to call back on Oct. 3 but that didn't happen.
This morning I finally received a corrected bill for each account.This afternoon I also received a text from the contact person at Sky requesting that I refer my complaint to her supervisor. I understand if the rep felt that my situation was beyond the limits of her job responsibilities , but as a matter of business courtesy, the supervisor should be the one to initiate the contact.
Obviously, I'm glad that the situation has apparently been resolved, but if I hadn't persisted in getting it it fixed and wasted hours of my time in doing so, rather than looking at an accurate statement, I might now be looking at a "cable-less" blue screen on my TV and at a "cannot connect" message on my computer for my Internet service.
The moral of the story is that if ever you have a service issue like this one, don't assume that it will be resolved with one call to or interface with a representative. If the complaint isn't properly addressed on the second contact, get a supervisor or manager involved and follow up regularly. Escalate the matter and file a complaint with the appropriate regulatory agency if necessary. These steps won't guarantee success in getting issues settled in your favor, but failure to stay on top of them will almost ensure a disappointing outcome.
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