Customer Service

Ever since I started working in the Bank, I've learnt the importance of good customer service. This is why I would willingly pay more to buy from a good sales person than save the few bucks at a shop where the sales person couldn't care less.

It also made me aware of the amazingly bad customer service I've had to endure. Choice selects:

1. Proton.
Hands down the worse ever. Their Proton i-Care helpline is a joke. They promised me the car in 2 weeks at most, and I only got it after 3 months. And that was after dozens of calls made to the Manager who only talked to me the first time, and then keep evading my calls by being 'away' every time I called his number. Found his cell phone number and called him and voila he answered! Guess what, he's in a very important meeting and will call back. He never did.

I got the car, and it has a suite of problems, the worse of which is a faulty ECM which resulted in the engine shutting down suddenly and can't be restarted until the car cools down. I called the Proton 24-hours Helpline to tow my the first time it happened, smack in the middle of a very busy traffic light. Guess what, the guy who was on the line kept asking me for my car insurance policy number. WTF? I blew my top off, and told him to get a tow truck quickly because my battery is low and I can't stand being honked at by asshole drivers who think I deliberately parked my car in the middle of the intersection, despite my hazard light blinking. And no, the tow truck never came. They sent a mechanic who touched this and that and said it's wiring problem. The car engine then has cooled down enough to be restarted.

Went to a Proton Edar service rep, and they said it's been fixed and blamed me for going up inclines without downshifting to a lower gear. They said it's caused by 'spark plug masuk minyak' whatever the hell that means. Within a day it broke down again, in the middle of MRR2 as I was sending it to Proton Edar Service Center for second opinion. I was maybe 2KM away, and I called them for assistance. They told me to wait for 30mins and see if I can start the car and then call them again. Luckily I found out the night before my insurance offers free towing service, no questions asked.

So finally problem was solved, but not after going through all this shit. Dato' Syed Zainal, do something la beb. Macam haram customer service kau nih.

2. TMnet/Streamyx.
If I forgot to pay my bills, they would be so diligent in cutting off my net connection. But when their service was like shit a while back, they didn't even offer an explanation until a few weeks later. What, no courtesy to even refund us for the subpar performance? Imagine getting a time out message even to open Google.

My calls to them about it were always answered 'we're upgrading bla bla bla', or 'we're already looking into it bla bla bla'. When I asked when will this be resolved, they won't give me a timeline.

Even though it's okay now, but the experience left a bitter taste. They should have handled it better by sending personal letters to the customers or something before people gets mad about it. Jeremy Kung, any ideas? Don't tell me you only employ geeks with no social skills over there.

3. LHDN/IRB.
I never had problems with IRB before, until recently. I submitted my tax forms which shows that they owe me a sum of money for tax overpaid. After a few months of waiting (way past their promised deadline to issue cheques), I received a letter from them. I was excited since I was anticipating the cheque.

What I got was a letter saying I have to pay an extra RM750 due to previously untaxed portion or something. I was told to settle end by month end. So I called their customer service hotline.
I waited for a long time just to get to speak to someone. At every menu choice, the instruction is very lengthy and complete with some IRB message or something. When I finally managed to talk to someone, I was glad she was a nice girl. So I asked her what's all this about?

She said "encik tak perlu risau, kita akan offset payment tu dengan encik punye PCB. Jadi encik tak perlu membuat apa-apa bayaran". Huh, so why did you guys send me the statement along with the instruction to pay up and everything then? When I asked her what am I supposed to do, she said "encik tak perlu buat apa-apa, encik boleh abaikan saja statement tu". Arghhh!

Don't waste paper and my time lah!!! You could've just let me know in a short paragraph that you have debited certain amount from the overpaid tax balance because of this and that. Easy right, Dato' Hasmah?

Some others are excellent, like Domino's, Maxis and Astro, but the rest still have a long way to go.