Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Customer service at call center

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Customer service at call center

I had difficulty to access the Internet. I called Starhub. The hotline staff transferred me to a technical expert. I was left holding on to the line for 5 minutes waiting for the technical expert to receive the call. As I was using my mobile phone, it was quite costly to be holding on. I gave up.

The call center staff should ask for my mobile phone and get the technical expert to call me. This is only fair to the customer. But most call centers have a policy not to call the customer. This policy should be changed.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...: Mr Tan, welcome to Singapore.; March 30, 2010 11:49 AM
Wayne K said...: I believe that the 1800 numbers are toll-free, so the cost involved is your time.; March 30, 2010 12:14 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to Wayne K

I think that the charges on the mobile phone is not toll free - unless I am mistaken.; March 30, 2010 1:01 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: To 11:49 am

Rather than by cynical, it is our duty to speak up and do our best to correct the bad things in Singapore.; March 30, 2010 1:02 PM
Tommy said...: I am surprised that the call centre did not provide for the call back option. Secondly, if you have a starhub hubstation, it is worth the effort to call and enquire about the free home line.; March 30, 2010 1:45 PM
Vincent Sear said...: 1800 numbers are phoneline toll free but not mobile airtime free for mobile phones. That's why phone companies can offer so-called free IDD calls on mobile phones to many countries. They don't charge the IDD rates but still they charge the mobile airtime rates.

Anyway, my experience with SingTel has been quite OK. They do offer to take my number and call back, and they do call back within reasonable time.; March 30, 2010 1:56 PM
Anonymous said...: There are lot of very bad things in Singapore.

If we speak up, the risk of being sued and/or send to jail is very high.

Even when you were NTUC Income CEO, I have to wait very long to receive responses from real people. All the time I was served by machine.

So this is the real world.; March 30, 2010 2:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Oh. I called Starhub before lunch today and I'm still waiting for their technical support to return my call.; March 30, 2010 2:27 PM
Anonymous said...: The worst experience I have was that when I lodged a complaint via their feedback website, they just ignore you without responding in Samsung website.; March 30, 2010 3:45 PM
Anonymous said...: If CEOs are really keen on improving, all they have to do is call their on customer service lines and experience what their customers experience.

But CEOs are really too clever to do this. CEOs focus on servicing their REAL customers, the Board members, who have the authority fire them.

This practice is called managing upwards. Master this skill, and eventually you will be asked to join the Board. And sit on the Boards of other companies as well.

If you don't learn this skill, you join all the rest of us here ... complaining about it online.; March 30, 2010 4:52 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Here is a happy conclusion and a big improvement to Starhub's service.

I called Starhub from my office. The hotline got a technical expert to call me on my mobile phone within 5 minutes. I explained the problem with my modem. The expert checked and confirmed that my modem could not be detected at his end. He arranged to call me at 7 pm when I am back home.

He did. At that time, the modem was working properly. He could detect my modem. He said that he would call me back on the same time tomorrow, to check if the connection is still working well.

This took only a few minutes of my time and his time. It was great customer service.

An organisation can improve its customer service significantly just by changing the way it handles customer request. An easy way is to take down the problem and get an expert to call back!; March 30, 2010 7:11 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: I used the magic words to get the technical expert to call back. I said, "This morning, I was transferred to the technical expert. I held on to the line for 5 minutes and gave up. Can you ask the technical expert to call me back? I do not want to hold on for him again. "

It worked!; March 30, 2010 7:40 PM