Bad Customer Service and How it Pays to Blog About It
I can be tough customer. My sister I am a very demanding costumer and I am not denying that. I do not like it when sales ladies follows and breathes down on my neck as I am looking around any stores. Sometimes before entering the store, I like telling the sales lady to quit following me around of I am off their store.
I have read enough stories from Consumerist that made me raving envious about how posting their rants at their site help dissatisfied customers. Consider this story about Sam who got a new MacBook Pro after the Apple Customer Care erased his hard drive without his permission when this guy brought his Mac in and Apple found some ladybugs inside his laptop. Sam seeked the help of Consumerist and got a replacement in order for him to “restore faith in the company.” Or about J. Money who blogs at Budgets are Sexy thought he did everything to get the photographer who skipped town without handing out his wedding photos. He threatened to sue, without avail and when he finally thought to create a blog about the wedding fiasco. He named names and even included dates, and viola! Two days and 300 hits after, the photos were all emailed to him and two weeks after that, the photos were in his hands. According to J., “so for a measly $9.99 (for the domain name) and a few hours of hard work, Operation Wedding Pictures was a success!“
At any rate, it does pay to blog about bad customer services– in the US, I am afraid. I have read enough bitching in the local blogs here but there really isn’t any clue if Customer Service in our country is topnotch or at least has improved.
Local Companies with B a d R a p s
1. Smart Bro- There have been alot of complaints about Smart Bro and how bad their client response is. Too bad that even the creation of their own Smart Broken website did not seem to help encourage their customer service department to improve their services.
2. PLDT- Nixon’s PLDT incident as retold by Jepoy ranked highest in my PLDT bad Customer rap sheet. What happened was a PLDT CSR swore at him after he demanded two day rebate for the two days downtime. The incident was very well blogged about but there was no follow-up on whether the CSR was reprimanded or even if Nixon got his rebate or better yet an apology from PLDT. No wonder according to a market poll, the level of frustration of customers for services of telephone companies are at a high 90% for landline, 85% for internet and 92% for cellular phones.
3. Bayantel- I am a Bayantel subscriber, and although I personally have no complaints about their services, I have read enough to jam my reader. One of my best Bayantel complaints come from their very own forum. Most of the complaints about delayed services and extremely bad CSR.
4. Banco de Oro- Ohhh, I have alot to say about BDO, but my favorite CSR complaint came from Salve who got a mangled P500 from a BDO machine. Another one came from Marie Casas who just gave BDO the title Worst Pinoy Bank Don’t forget my very own BDO horror story, which is so like this other guys fake money experience, but his was in Metrobank. BDO has alot of gall because although they have alot of bad juju going, BDO continues to be one of the top banks in the country.
5. Meralco- Angelo Racoma’s complaint about Meralco comes first in the list. And yes, Filipina Mom’s who has to use her bitch powers to deal with Meralco’s CSR. The best entry comes from KAKAMMPI, who are currently organizing a class suit against Meralco over over-charging…
Notice that most of the companies with bad raps are the telecommunications companies? Why is this? One thing is for sure, there is something wrong with our system. I know that there are simply alot of places in the net where consumers like us can vent our frustrations but are the companies actually taking down notes? Does blogging about bad customer service in the Philippines actually gets result? According to Annalyn Jusay’s article, that Filipinos as consumers tend to be slack.
“Majority of Filipino (consumers) believe that the situation is not likely to improve soon, so they might as well stick with the provider they’re used to dealing with.”
Having low standard and warped sense of loyalty, it seems that we need to reassess and reevaluate our own attitude and standards for services. We need to jack up our standard and complain like mad to get the best and appropriate service there is. I have traveled to some countries in Asia and the Pacific and so far perhaps Laos’ customer service is the worst there is. I complained before about bad cable tv reception and the cable guy they sent did not even carry any tools with him. To make it worse, he asked my Lao maid if he could borrow our kitchen knife so he could check the wirings at the back of the television. It was so bad, I told him to leave my television alone and send me an English speaking electrician with tools! Suffice to say, our service record is better than some countries, but this doesn’t mean we could just let companies like Banco de Oro, Meralco, Bayantel, PLDT and Smart browbeat us. We need our voices to be heard. How else can we do it? We need to complain, complain and most importantly, have our voices be heard.
If you have other service complaints, let me hear about them and perhaps we could demand the respect and appropriate action from these companies. If you want to learn how to write a complaint letter, you can check out the draft from Consumerist. And here are tips from Life Spy if you want to complain about bad food service.
For funny stories on Bad Customer Service, check out Customer Disservice.
Photo by Stock Exchange
Just to set the record straight, I didn’t make the call with the PLDT CSR and neither am I subscribed to PLDT myDSL. I’ve been with Destiny Cable Internet for more than 10 years
I stated on my post that my friend Nixon sent the recorded conversation to me and I just re-uploaded it on Odeo and Rapidshare.
I stand corrected Jepoy. Sorry for the mistake.
I go to Laos to escape people like you. Please don’t come back.
Somchai, it seem that you have not read my article… The comment about Laos is that CS is lax, nothing more. And yes, I am ALREADY back in the country to kick some more butt!
Somchai, I think you have no idea what I am talking about.
Akin naman mas malala. I work in outsourcing and one of my bosses decided to get me an American bank-based debit card ng Mastercard para sa payroll ko. Pero dito ako sa Pinas based. Two months ago, my boss advanced me $200 because I had gotten the flu and I needed money to go seek medical attention as well as meds and food. I live alone and live near a BDO branch. I attempted to withdraw P9,600 from BDO at 6am (right after my usual shift). Nag-hang ng matagal ang ATM ng branch (sa may Eastwood near Fitness First) and then spewed out my ATM with no receipt. When I went back online to check my account, I found out that the P9600 had been debited! I immediately called their CSR and I was informed that I should inform the bank in the States (which I did) and return to BDO to inquire what I need to do to prove to them that money wasn’t dispensed. Take note na walang security guard at the time when I attempted to withdraw money. Mabilis ang response ng American bank once I emailed them pero they had to depend on BDO to investigate the matter. Pag dating ko sa BDO, I met this Cecille Maramba – supposedly the Marketing Manager of the bank (this was 9:30am). I told her what had happened and somehow, iba yata ang pag-process niya ng information. Because with a condescending voice, she told me that they can’t open the ATM machine for me to get the money. She then laughed at me. As I was already stressed out, I turned my back on her, went back home and called another CSR — who incidentally told me that emailling my bank is enough and no need to go to the BDO branch. Since today, I have yet to see a cent of the money. I still feel pretty bad about it.
Bob, sorry to hear about your BDO experience. If that was me, I would have kicked Ms. Maramba!
I was too tired and stressed out to do anything more. The good thing though is that my boss in the States knows the president of the bank in the States, after I emailed him what had happened, they were gracious enough to act on the matter. But then, there hasn’t been any updates since the incident began. I was told it would take sixty days. Malapit na yung sixty days and still no word.
Kaya natuto na ako, I only go to HSBC or Citibank. Nakakainis din kasi, the debit card that I receive has a fee of almost P400 per withdrawal. Buti na lang my boss offsets that amount. But still…
I would also appreciate if you would correct your post. Thanks
Done, Jepoy. I apologize for the mistake.
you know Skycable’s Skydigibox..?
– we were able to view channels like 75.
– last late november or early december, we suddenly didn’t view them-unaccessible.
– my mom and dad called skycable and asked why..
– skycable said that they were upgrading the system and to access those channels you have to buy their digibox. it is for P1500 pesos.
– when you buy that digibox, you’ll just have access to the previous normal channels like 75 and no additional channels.
– it turns out.. they were just “upgrading” in order to sell their DIGIBOX. we don’t need the features of the digibox! we need the channels back without the digibox.
– and if their reason is to upgrade the system so that no illegal connections are made, then we consumers should not be affected by it —- we should not pay for the P1500 upgrade of their system. they should shoulder the expenses they do.
– we called several times (more than 10 times!) their hotline. but every time they say that they shall note the complaint. and we don’t receive feedback on what action they have done to have those complaints reach the marketing department or management.
– we heard that the digibox was not selling and just being unused in their warehouses that’s why they implemented this scheme. ARGH!
– unsatisfactory customer complaint handling..no feedback whatsoever…
Ay, matalino!!!
The worse thing is as paying consumers, we shouldn’t be suffering for their marketing blunders. At any rate, whatever happened to your subscription? I just wish more of these service providers would take notice of the complaints of their subscribers. Reklamo tayo ng reklamo, pero ala namang nangyayari.
Hi!
Nice Blog! Happy to keep following this!
Thanks.