CUSTOMER SERVICE
I WAS in South Korea on a business trip last week when I realised that I couldn’t send SMSes. Upon returning to Malaysia, I called the Celcom customer service hotline to enquire about the situation.
After waiting five minutes, I spoke to an operator, who asked for my phone number. I found that strange since I had punched in my number followed by the “#” key when I dialled the hotline number.
After giving my number to the operator, the line was cut off. It couldn’t be because of bad reception, as I was using the landline in my office, which made me assume that it was because of Celcom’s network connection.
So, I had to go through the process again.
The operator told me that the roaming service for my number had not been activated, thus, the inability to send SMSes while overseas. I told him to activate the service for my number.
He put me on hold and when he got back, informed me that he was unable to contact the department concerned to activate the service for me, as no one was picking up his call.
He said he would transfer my call to the department for it to facilitate my request.
I stopped him and told him that I was not interested in being transferred from one department to another, saying my previous call had been cut off and I did not want to be treated like a game of ping-pong.
I told him to put in a request to the department concerned to activate the service for my number, but he said he couldn’t do that as it was not part of the process and there was nothing he could do to activate the service.
Since it seemed hopeless to
continue the argument, I reluctantly allowed him to transfer my call to the other department.
After a wait, the same operator picked up the phone and told me that no one in the department concerned was picking up the call.
The icing on the cake was when he told me to call back after lunch. What a fantastic customer service. Bravo.
Does Celcom think customers have nothing better to do than spend time calling its customer service hotline to chat with its operators?
A simple request to activate the roaming service should have
been settled with only one call
— assuming that staff members in the department concerned are not too preoccupied to pick up my call after lunch.
If not, where would it end? Should I be calling every hour until somebody can find the time to entertain my request?
I pay almost RM100 every month, and I demand that Celcom improves its customer service and remove the bureaucratic red tape to simplify the process when its staff members deal with customers.
I hope Celcom is aware that it is not the only telco service provider in the country.
There are plenty of options for customers like me.
R.T.J.H., Nilai, Negri Sembilan