The Four-eyed Journal » Customer-service

Thoughts and suggestions for Globe Telecom

jhay — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:54:07 +0000

Satisfactory customer service. Working in the customer service industry for even less than a year is enough time to make you understand what customers of any business or service want: getting the most value for what you pay for, if not more.

So I’m taking this time to share some of my thoughts and suggestions to improve Globe Telecom’s services because I just received a text message saying that in the coming days, their Market Research folks will call me up to conduct a study or survey on how to do just that, improve their services.

I’ve been a customer of Globe Telecom for almost seven years now both as a land line, residential broadband, pre-paid and post-paid mobile user.

So I’ve seen how their services and customer support have changed over the years.

Some two years ago, their broadband service, well in our area, was terrible. I’ve had days of good connection and then weeks of either intermittent or absolutely no connection at all.

Failing to do follow up calls

Worse, their customer service was equally terrible. The thing that really pissed me off was they would always promise to call back to follow up or give an update on the status of their repair but THEY NEVER DID.

And I’m the person who would really give time to actually wait around for that call. So when it was my turn to do a follow up call, the representative that took my call always had an earful from me.

So that’s suggestion number one: Globe Telecom should actually do the things they promised their customers. Make a call when they said they would call back. Even if it’s just to say they need more time to work on my request. Leaving a customer in a limbo is a good way to get frustrated and dissatisfied customers.

Lack of consistency

Another complaint I have with Globe Telecom’s customer service is consistency, or their utter lack of it. On my first call they would tell one thing and swear by it but on the second call the next representative would tell a completely different thing. Making a customer look like a complete fool is another great way of getting dissatisfied customers.

Website in perpetual Beta

Next would be Globe Telecom’s website that seems to be in a perpetual beta stage. Don’t get me wrong, their website has improved a lot over the years, but still, a lot of the basic and essential information a customer needs are still missing or terribly hard to find. Like their ever-elusive Acceptable Use Policy. You’d see numerous links about it but clicking on it leads you to no where. This may be the day and age of dynamic websites but it refers to content, not the framework, features or design of the website.

Seemingly understaffed Business Centers

I now move on to their Business Centers where you get to talk with their representatives face to face. Most of the time, it’s a nightmare to visit because it’s full of other customers who usually wait for hours on end before they get serviced. Sure, Globe’s queue management system is something government offices should have, but that’s the only thing that differentiates the two!

They would have plenty of counters but actually only one or two would be manned. Worse, the representatives who man the counters move and do their work in a glacial pace. And it makes me suspect that they are doing a lot of non-work related stuff on their computer because they would spend a great deal of time on it in between serving customers. Another habit of theirs would be to take at least 10 to 15 minutes in between customers and they would just stand up and go somewhere else, talk to their fellow representatives completely oblivious to the mass of customers who have been waiting in queue for hours. And they were sitting on front of their counters for hours!

All these basically sums up everything I have to say about Globe’s customer services. I’m pretty sure you have plenty other things to share as well.

New Year wish: Improved Globe Broadband services

jhay — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:05:55 +0000

As Ms Connie Veneracion reminds us that with a new year, a chance for a fresh start comes, I’d like to break this blogging hiatus with a positive view that hopefully, the coming new year would be the year when one of my wishes would come true; that Globe would improve their broadband services in our area.

For the past three months, starting last October up to this last day of 2009, my broadband internet connection has been intermittent, every 40 minutes or so, the connection would be cut off and I had to restart my modem several times in order to get online again.

It was tolerable for just one day, but experiencing such horrible connection for most of the week throughout the last three months have become unbearable. I’ve called up their customer service center and they’ve sent their technical teams (contractors) to check up and “repair” my connection four times and they’ve all come to the conclusion that there’s nothing wrong with the lines that run from my house to their cabinet of ports and switches located a few blocks away.

The problem lies with that cabinet of theirs which according to their technical teams, is already old and thus riddled with damaged ports. Unfortunately for me, I am one of the few Globe subscribers in Silang, Cavite, whose physical connection have been assigned to a damaged port.

Accordingly, I have made three or four calls to Globe’s Customer Services Center specifically requesting that said damaged port/cabinet be repaired or have my physical connection switched to a non-damaged one. In each of the requests I’ve made, I was given the assurance that my request would be attended to and complied with the soonest possible time.

Unfortunately, and much to my suffering despite the fact that I’ve been a loyal Globe subscriber for more than three years now, no action has been taken to address my request/concern.

At present, I’m contemplating on the following plan, send a formal letter to Globe about this concern and hear their response. If it’s acceptable to me as a paying customer then well and good. If not, then I’d elevate the matter to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in the form of a formal complaint.

I’ll share my letter on this blog once I’ve sent it to Globe and hopefully, things will turn out alright. 2009 has been a not-so-good year for me and my online experience, all because of Globe’s crappy broadband services and their inept technical support. Come 2010, tomorrow, I only pray that it would be a better year compared to this one.

This post has been inspired by Ms Noemi’s billing problems with Globe’s iPhone 3G. For those with similar problems you can get in touch with her to help in documenting more cases and getting some action from Globe. It’s time we consumers stand up for our rights.

Problems with Globe 3G/GPRS & MMS

jhay — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:37:27 +0000

We all know of Globe Telecom’s new 3G/GPRS/HSDPA rates and how it received warm welcomes from users. It’s now similar to what rival Smart is offering but their version is slightly different. I immediately switched over to their new time-based charging scheme last Monday, April 10 by texting “time” to 1111. Below is the exact SMS confirmation message I received soon after:

U have successfully shifted to TIME Browsing w/ the ff Terms & Conditions:
1. U will be charged P5 for every 15mins of mobile internet cnection regardless of the no./type of sites visitd (ex. myGlobe/Yahoo..)
2. Succeeding connections will be chargd P5 for 15mins;
3. No refund will be made if disconcted before the 15 mins are up
4. This is only applicable to browsing w/in the Phil.

A bit greedy and harsh if I may say but it’s way better than their greedier per KB charging. However, problems soon appeared and are still causing me frustration and disappointment with Globe Telecom.

Ever since I switched over to their new time-based charging scheme, I can no longer send and receive MMS messages. Even browsing on wap sites using my SE K800i became very slow and often times intermittent.

Immediately, last Tuesday, I called up Globe’ infamous Customer Help hotline and reported my problem. A report was made by the agent that took my call and I was told to wait for their customary 24-hour turn-around period and God-willing, I would be able to send and receive MMS messages again.

Unfortunately, I was still not able to. So again I called up Customer Service to follow up on my case. The agent told me that the system deactivated my MMS service because my balance once reached below Php50, which is required to send and receive MMS messsages. Okay…

I told them that at that time, my balance was somewhere above Php400 and that even though my balance went down below Php50, I never had this kind of problem. Perhaps it’s because I switched to the new time-based charging rates and that this is a bug in their network.

A bug that persisted

It was day two of my ordeal and after waiting for another 24 hours for their technical team to do their ~~blunder~~ magic, I was still unable to send and receive MMS messages.

Wednesday was the 3rd day and so I made another phone call, again was given the same old routine of waiting for another 24 hours for the remedy to work because as far as they are concerned, their technicians have “manually” activated my MMS service and everything was OK.

Right, as what I’ve told the CSR, “Would I be calling customer service if the problem has been already fixed?” This controlled outburst was returned with their customary apologies for the inconvenience as a result of their crappy system, network and employees.

A female CSR lied to me

Earlier this afternoon, Thursday, at around 5:30pm I made my 4th call because I’m still having the same problem. The same script was played out to me; “Sir, as of today OK na po ang inyong MMS sa aming system.”

My response: “Tatawag ba ako sa inyo kung may problema pa ako? This is the 4th day I’m having this problem and this is the 4th call and still, nothing positive has happened. I still could not send nor receive MMS messages.”

I expected the customary apologies from her but what she told me next really struck a nerve. She asked me for my location, “Silang, Cavite” I told her. She put me on hold for 2 minutes while she “checked” something in their system. When she returned, she told me that since their system is saying that my MMS service is “activated” everything is OK. My problem may be caused by an “ongoing system enhancement in Tagaytay City” and I should wait for another 24 hours for this to be totally resolved.

“System enhancement” my ass!

After that conversation with that female Globe CSR, I re-dialed the customer service number and when a new CSR picked up my call, a male agent this time around, I asked if there was an “ongoing system enhancement in Tagaytay City” at that very moment.

He told me that there was none. Being puzzled, he asked me why I asked. I told him, “that’s what your fellow agent told me a while ago when I followed up my MMS problems.” After re-telling my story for the 5th time and after the guy seeing the record of my account, he once more offered his apologies for this inconvenience, he would file another report to their technical support team and the whole cycle just repeated itself, adding much more to my frustrations and aggravations.

To everyone at Globe, and I mean everyone, I understand that these things happen. But for the love of God and the welfare of your PAYING customers, do your jobs right and with decency.

It’s understandable that it could get difficult if you CSR agents run out of things to say when your protocols or scripts do not cover every query or response from us customers, but to lie to us?! Nakakahiya, La Salle alumni pa naman ang presidente ng kumpanya nyo.

The Probe on internet subscriber woes

jhay — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:07:05 +0000

Something nerve-wracking, exciting and potentially controversial happened to me today. A crew from The Probe (we are more familiar with them as The Probe Team) came by my residence this lunch time and interviewed me on camera about the love-and-hate relationship with I have my internet service provider Globelines Broadband.

Blog friends, colleagues in my freelance stints and the loyal readers of this blog know all too well the story of this relationship with Globelines or Innove. In fact, this blog ranks pretty well in the SERPs for the keywords; “globelines, broadband, router, internet speed, Taiwan quake and repair.”

Why so? At first, I was a happy Globelines broadband subscriber, that upgrade last 2006 from 384kbps to 512kbps for free even made me happier. When the Taiwan earthquake struck our side of Asia last January, it revealed how crappy their services could be. It was so crappy, my experience led me to believe that Globelines never fully recovered from the quake or it has shaken off ilusions that they were better than the other providers. It climaxed last April when in the middle of an important blogging series and my first-time freelance job, I lost my internet connection and it took 5 whole days before they were able to restore my connection. Along with it, tons of human aggravation, an abrupt end to the blogging series and losing that job. I just hated them back then.

The ordeal was far from over because just after 25 days or so, the connection became intermittent once more. Again it took 5 days to fix this by giving me a new modem/router. Since then, many subscribers with the same or even worse experience found those entries of mine chronicling my unsatisfactory and costly subscription with Globelines broadband and voiced out their experiences, gripes and disgust of the service as well. Since then, the quality of my internet connection has also gone from crappy to crappier. Though I’m not experiencing complete loss of connections lasting for days. I had have to restart my modem/router every 3 hours or so because the connection would just stop, or there are times in the day that their speed is slow, very slow. Signs that even in high-speed internet services, there are peak and off-peak hours, despite the “unlimited broadband” connection I and many others have signed up and continues to pay for.

Moment of spotlight

Spoilers of the interview right? Well that’s just half of the story, or rather what I told The Probe led by Segment Producer Art Fuentes, Ms Hera Sanchez, the one who actually interviewed me, and their hard working camera crew.

Second thoughts ran through my mind about pushing through with the interview which was initiated last Monday, I think, when I first recieved an email from Sir Art via this blog’s contact form. I sought the advice of my mother, my blogging mentors J Angelo and Sexy Mom on how to go on with the interview. My mom said that Globelines, the big corporation that it is, might go after me once I appear on camera and starts to bad-mouth them and their crappy internet services. SexyMom and J Angelo had almost similar concerns but they made clear that I must be fair, act and say something only on the basis of the facts and first-hand experience I had, no more, no less.

However, my mind was made up and I’ve decided on pushing through with the interview with the intent and hope that through this exposure (read: ~~shameless~~ self-promotion), I might be able to put the message across to the internet service providers, not just Globelines, that it’s not enough they provide promos and fast connections. They should back it up with quality customer services and support, because people are actually paying money for this kind of service.

The second concern I had was, where the heck would I let them interview me? I had bigger worries when Sir Art told me that he wanted to film me with my computer, re-enacting some daily blogging routines and stuff. My computer was in my bedroom, and the idea of having an investigative media crew inside my room was like being in MTV’s “Room Raiders” or being a contestant in Big Brother. And I’m telling you, my room is much like your average college guy’s room. Laundry, books, bags, papers, socks and who knows what all over the place, I prefer to call it “organized chaos.” On top of that, my room is not that spacious to comfortably accomodate 5 people and some filming equipment.

More organized chaos

Nonetheles, I had no other choice but to wake up early and do a major room clean-up. Had breakfast, took a bath and waited for their arrival. Soon enough, at around lunch time, they finally came and after short introductions, we proceeded upstairs to have everything setup for the interview. It was quite a challenge as the second floor of our hosue was not that spacious so we moved a couple of drawers here and there until Sir Art was happy with the lighting, the camera angle and audio setup.

The interview proper went on smoothly, at the most. Ms Hera gave me a few tips on how to act or behave during the interview as to help me calm down and help me answer the questions clearly and as correct as I can. You wouldn’t want to be misquoted or to look like an idiot on national TV. The interview was done in Filipino though there were some English words and terms that got inserted in my replies. I won’t mention the questions or topics we talked about, just watch the episode this coming Wednesday on ABS-CBN.

During the shooting of some additional ‘scenes’ like me using the internet, blogging and doing my daily routine with the computer, I got to talk about blogging and how it has transformed my life as an individual, a student and as an advocate. I also stressed how crucial the internet is to bloggers, a few basics about troubleshooting your broadband connection and I tried to show them and on cam, how to measure the actual speed of your internet connection via online tools like Speedtest.net (Hat tip to Sir J Angelo!)

Embarrassingly, when I tried to do a test of the speed of my Globelines broadband, it failed because for some strange reason, I was not able to ping the test servers in California. So there, right in front of the Probe, Globelines screwed up!

After we wrapped up my interview. We went out to visit my kababayan or townmate the internet cafe owner who subscribed to Globelines broadband for her business when she first opened it. It was, as the Probe found out, a mistake for her. The details of her harrowing experience, of course would be shown in the episode when it airs this coming Wednesday, August 22.

In case you do miss the episode, be sure to check their website because they’ll post it there too. Besides, the site it self is a treasure trove of good quality video-documentaries and short indie films.

I never realized that through blogging, I’d have this kind of experience, like being interviewed on camera by some A-list media group. I imagined it to be like giving a talk about blogging or being featured by some of the mainstream media outfits for being one of the most successful bloggers around.

Oh well, at least I’ve done something with blogging that will concretely serve the interests of the online Pilipino community, better services from our ISPs.

To Sir Art, Ms Hera and the crew, thank you very very much for this opportunity. Oh and thanks for the free lunch as well.

The free lunch they gave was not a bribe or any reward for doing the interview with them or for me to link to their site. They were just that nice and generous.

UPDATE:

Sir Art Fuentes of The Probe just informed me tru YM that the coverage about broadband concerns has been bumped-off to next week, August 29, 2007 to give way to their Ninoy Aquino Day special episode. Do watch it still, and keep in mind “is the Filipino still dying for?”