Every once in a while life gives us a jolt just to show us how much we take for granted every single day. A few months ago, my life suddenly turned into a never ending live example of Murphy's law. My 3 month old laptop crashed, my brand new blackberry didn't work, my bank account got frozen for no apparent reason, I almost lost the roof over my head, my home internet stopped working for no reason (yes i had paid the bills!) , my home electricity account got disabled (yes I paid the bills for that too!!) .....nothing seemed to be going right.
And when prayers didn't seem to work, I did the only other thing imaginable;
I called up the customer care for each service.
Now Customer Care is a funny animal. Everytime I think of it, the picture of an octopus pops into my head. A big head called the Global HQ with arms spreading all over the world, encircling our dear planet from one end to another. You can imagine if you only had 1 head to manage arms that spread across the earth, it would get a little difficult to give the correct directions wouldn't it? Now imagine the customer care of every company as a separate octopus and you have a complex web of octopus heads and arms all entangled with each other, all of them trying to ...yes... answer your call.
Regardless of the hair splitting frustration I went through at the time, just as with everything else in life, hindsight is your best stand up comic. So here are the top 3 customer care experiences I had... in increasing order of frustration..err..I mean hilarity
#3 Call SBI Customer Care Singapore::
IVR : "If you know the extension of the person you wish to talk to then please dial the extension else press 9 for operator"
press 9
IVR : "If you know the extension of the person you wish to talk to then please dial the extension else press 9 for operator"
[HUH?? I Just Did That] Press 9
IVR: "Thank you for calling us. Have a nice day"
[CLICK]
Sorry what???? I tried this 3 times, and then gave up and sacrificed my precious Saturday afternoon sleep to drag myself halfway through Singapore to get what I needed to get done.
#2 Call Starhub Customer Care Singapore::
"Hi, our internet connection has stopped working. It was working fine till yesterday evening, can you please tell us what could be wrong?"
"Sure Ma'm, can I have your customer number?"
"Umm.. sorry I don't have that at hand, I can give you the name of the account holder, can you search by that?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
"I will have to find a bill for that, can't you find out through the name or my house address? Surely the address will be unique wouldn't it?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
"Okay fine, let me find a bill, please stay on the line"
5 minutes later..
"I have the bill in my hand. But it doesn't have anything like a customer number. It has an account number, will that work?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
[Is that an automated response??]
"But the account number should also be unique shouldn't it?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
[WTF!!]
"Look I am telling you I can give you my address, account number, last bill date, a/c holders' name...but there is nothing like a customer number here..."
"No Ma'm I need your customer number. Without that I can't help you"
[ARRRGGGHHH!!!]
I hung up, unplugged all wires and reset the internet connection a few times. Eventually it picked itself up again.
Next month, I received a bill that read as follows:
"Dear Customer, please note that your current account number will be referred to as your customer number from now onwards."
.......
I am thinking of sending that bill to their customer care center, just FYI.
#1 Call Dell Singapore::
Navigate through a labryinth of pages to find the correct toll-free number, a number that worked on weekends - because obviously I needed my laptop fixed urgently
24X7 toll-free no.1 : "Our working hours are Monday - Friday 9 AM to 5 PM. Please call again later"
24X7 toll-free no.2 : "This number is not toll-free and will be charged usual ISD rates. If you wish to disconnect, please hang up now"
[I did not hang up....]
[They did!]
Try again: "This number is not toll-free and will be charged usual ISD rates. If you wish to disconnect, please hang up now"
[I did not hang up....]
[They did!]
24X7 toll-free no.3 : "Hi, May I help you"
"Yes, I bought a laptop 3 months ago and last night I was checking my email when it suddenly crashed. And it isn't booting up now. The service tag no is xxxxx . Its under a 1 year warranty"
"Please hold on ma'm" ...
[2 minutes later]
"Ma'm where did you buy this laptop"
"Singapore"
"Ma'm you've reached the call center in the United States. Let me give you a number for Singapore"
[What?! I have been paying call charges for ISD ... but this call didn't say it was not toll free!!]
"Yes please, give me the number"
"xxxxxxxx"
New toll-free number: "Our working hours are Monday - Friday 9 AM to 5 PM. Please call again later"
......
A few more calls later I finally managed to find a shop that gave me the right number to call. A couple of months and many more phone calls and emails later, some one finally came and changed by hard disk. so much for my "urgency"! Of course since then I received their emails asking me to fill customer surveys, feedbacks and buy more stuff from them - everyDAY!! - until I did fill out a survey. The emails stopped coming, I think they read the survey! ;)
The winner of all the octopuses is an entirely separate story altogether ... coming up in "customer care the octopus - part 2"
And when prayers didn't seem to work, I did the only other thing imaginable;
I called up the customer care for each service.
Now Customer Care is a funny animal. Everytime I think of it, the picture of an octopus pops into my head. A big head called the Global HQ with arms spreading all over the world, encircling our dear planet from one end to another. You can imagine if you only had 1 head to manage arms that spread across the earth, it would get a little difficult to give the correct directions wouldn't it? Now imagine the customer care of every company as a separate octopus and you have a complex web of octopus heads and arms all entangled with each other, all of them trying to ...yes... answer your call.
Regardless of the hair splitting frustration I went through at the time, just as with everything else in life, hindsight is your best stand up comic. So here are the top 3 customer care experiences I had... in increasing order of frustration..err..I mean hilarity
#3 Call SBI Customer Care Singapore::
IVR : "If you know the extension of the person you wish to talk to then please dial the extension else press 9 for operator"
press 9
IVR : "If you know the extension of the person you wish to talk to then please dial the extension else press 9 for operator"
[HUH?? I Just Did That] Press 9
IVR: "Thank you for calling us. Have a nice day"
[CLICK]
Sorry what???? I tried this 3 times, and then gave up and sacrificed my precious Saturday afternoon sleep to drag myself halfway through Singapore to get what I needed to get done.
#2 Call Starhub Customer Care Singapore::
"Hi, our internet connection has stopped working. It was working fine till yesterday evening, can you please tell us what could be wrong?"
"Sure Ma'm, can I have your customer number?"
"Umm.. sorry I don't have that at hand, I can give you the name of the account holder, can you search by that?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
"I will have to find a bill for that, can't you find out through the name or my house address? Surely the address will be unique wouldn't it?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
"Okay fine, let me find a bill, please stay on the line"
5 minutes later..
"I have the bill in my hand. But it doesn't have anything like a customer number. It has an account number, will that work?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
[Is that an automated response??]
"But the account number should also be unique shouldn't it?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
[WTF!!]
"Look I am telling you I can give you my address, account number, last bill date, a/c holders' name...but there is nothing like a customer number here..."
"No Ma'm I need your customer number. Without that I can't help you"
[ARRRGGGHHH!!!]
I hung up, unplugged all wires and reset the internet connection a few times. Eventually it picked itself up again.
Next month, I received a bill that read as follows:
"Dear Customer, please note that your current account number will be referred to as your customer number from now onwards."
.......
I am thinking of sending that bill to their customer care center, just FYI.
#1 Call Dell Singapore::
Navigate through a labryinth of pages to find the correct toll-free number, a number that worked on weekends - because obviously I needed my laptop fixed urgently
24X7 toll-free no.1 : "Our working hours are Monday - Friday 9 AM to 5 PM. Please call again later"
24X7 toll-free no.2 : "This number is not toll-free and will be charged usual ISD rates. If you wish to disconnect, please hang up now"
[I did not hang up....]
[They did!]
Try again: "This number is not toll-free and will be charged usual ISD rates. If you wish to disconnect, please hang up now"
[I did not hang up....]
[They did!]
24X7 toll-free no.3 : "Hi, May I help you"
"Yes, I bought a laptop 3 months ago and last night I was checking my email when it suddenly crashed. And it isn't booting up now. The service tag no is xxxxx . Its under a 1 year warranty"
"Please hold on ma'm" ...
[2 minutes later]
"Ma'm where did you buy this laptop"
"Singapore"
"Ma'm you've reached the call center in the United States. Let me give you a number for Singapore"
[What?! I have been paying call charges for ISD ... but this call didn't say it was not toll free!!]
"Yes please, give me the number"
"xxxxxxxx"
New toll-free number: "Our working hours are Monday - Friday 9 AM to 5 PM. Please call again later"
......
A few more calls later I finally managed to find a shop that gave me the right number to call. A couple of months and many more phone calls and emails later, some one finally came and changed by hard disk. so much for my "urgency"! Of course since then I received their emails asking me to fill customer surveys, feedbacks and buy more stuff from them - everyDAY!! - until I did fill out a survey. The emails stopped coming, I think they read the survey! ;)
The winner of all the octopuses is an entirely separate story altogether ... coming up in "customer care the octopus - part 2"
