What is Good Service?

This morning, I received a call from SingTel at 11:21 A.M. On the other end of the line was a lady by the name of Serene Yeo. She said she would assist me on the phone to purchase the Samsung Omnia. I explained my situation to her and asked if I should be penalised to pay more (S$50) when the online problems actually came from singtelshop.com. I demanded for the original trade-in value of my V8. She promised me that she would check with her manager and get back to me ASAP.

At approximately 1:05 P.M., I received a follow up call from Serene. She brought with me good news - that I could eventually purchase the phone for S$348. She initially told me that the phone could only be delivered on next Monday. I rejected her idea and asked her if she could help me with the delivery schedule. Eventually, we settled for a delivery this Friday, from 6 - 9 P.M.

This is what I called "Service with Quality". This is unlike the bad experience I had with the earlier CSOs who did nothing productive but tested my patience. Ha. Of course, I had such good patience that people might think that I was too stupid to have waited for so long. They would probably call and scream at them the following day. Anyway, I really thanked Serene for her genuine assistance and would probably write in to SingTel to praise her service within this week. I am now waiting patiently for my Samsung Omnia to come to me this Friday. :)

SingTel Sucks Very Badly...

Last Monday, 04 Aug, I finally made up my mind to purchase the cool-looking Samsung Omnia via the singtelshop.com web-site. I thought it was quite a nice bargain if I traded in my Motorola V8 for S$200. I just had to pay S$348 in all, with renewal. Like any other buying/selling sites, it provides step-by-step guidance to get consumers like me to empty my pockets using my credit card. Happily, I filled up my particulars, double-checked what I had typed, and clicked on the "Submit order" button. It took a while to process and finally greeted me with the following message:

Frantically, I called up my bank and spoke to one of their friendly staff. I was eventually assured by the lady on the other end that there were no transactions being recorded. Phew! I called up SingTel as advised by her.

It was a lady. I explained to her my situation and she said that she could not rectify the problem on the spot. She assured me that she would give me a response the following day. I asked her for the timing and she replied, "In the afternoon, sir."

So I waited. And waited. And waited. It was already Thursday and I got no response from her. My patience abated and my anger rocketed. I called SingTel again in the morning. A guy called Reef answered my call and requested some time to "think of a solution". Like the lady, he promised me that he would get back to me ASAP. I asked him when. And he said, "Before I P.M." And so I waited.

I must be very silly to trust them. Till evening, I got no calls at all from SingTel. I called them the umpteenth time. Another guy answered my call. I could sense that he was very reluctant to help me out because he persistently assured me that he would email his colleague (that lady) and request her to reply me. F*** OFF, SingTel.

On Saturday, 10 Aug, I checked the trade-in value of my V8 from that unreliable web-site and was surprised that it had depreciated to S$150. Gosh, what a sum! >:( And there was still no response from SingTel. I decided to try my luck again. This time, I had this error message:

Bloody SingTel! Irritating SingTel! Damn SingTel! I called them again. Ha. It was the same guy (not Reef). He checked and confirmed that I was still eligible for contract renewal. When I asked him what he could do to assist me, he suggested that I could go down to one of those hello! shops and get them to assist me with my purchase. BS. "Then what is the web-site for? Isn't it supposed to minimise inconvenience on the consumer's side?" He blatantly repeated his last message like a tape recorder.

 

First Week at NIE...

Well, I used ONE full Thursday to complete two readings for the preparation of my first (and eventually the last) Record of Study for AAE445. I should not have lamented about it because I had that day to myself, unlike some of my classmates who had lessons to attend on every Thursday. By the end of the day, I almost completed my Record of Study. Anyway, at the very last minute, we (May, Cabrina and I) decided to drop AAE445 and add AAE440 as all of us agreed that though the module was interesting, it was too heavy for us to manage. And I was starting to doubt my capability.

The funny thing was that all three of us dropped AAE445 together but I was the only one who managed to add Dr. Xiao Lan's Bilingual Education successfully. Ha, talking about the fastest fingers! :D Anyway, since we had earlier spoken to Dr. Xiao Lan and got her assurance that slots would be allocated for us, we just had to send her an email to request her follow up with the FPO. And I was quick to sell my AAE445 notes to Sherylene too (at a discounted price, of course)! With the burden lifted off our shoulders, we went to 8Flags and Cabrina bought herself the Samsung printer CLP-310 for $268.

Moral of this story...

Last Thursday, 31 July 2008, I accompanied Harry to Far East Shopping Centre to get his PS3. There was already a crowd when we reached the shop. Like any customers, he made a few technical and after-sales enquiries, seemed satisfied with those anticipated responses, and got himself the deal. Yeah, it was definitely a better deal than mine because he paid S$ 10 less. Not that TEN dollars is a lot, but the price fell less than than a week I bought mine. Arrggghhhh...

Anyway, that was NOT the main story. The story only began when Harry requested that his PS3 be tested on the spot to avoid any inconvenience. The staff acceded to his request and proceeded to set up his gaming console. All was fine, and a happy Harry left the shop S$ 621 dollars poorer. (He bought MGS4 to play with).

In the evening, he called me and said that there was a blue screen on his TV. I tried to troubleshoot for him as much as I could like a Sony customer service officer. Gosh, the feeling really came back! Unfortunately, the problem could not be rectified and he asked me to go back to that shop the next day.

We reached the shop at 12 noon. He explained his problem to the staff very calmly. The guy suspected that when the HDMI channel/configuration was selected during the last testing, it needed to be switched back. Since the system only came with a normal VGA cable, the future-proof product could not detect the VGA cable (apparently still wanted to be connected with an HDMI cable). Well, the guy's conjecture proved correct and Harry went home a happy consumer again.

What is the moral of the story?

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When Harry asked the staff if any of their customers had encountered this "problem", the staff replied confidently with a "NO".

"You are the first one," said the staff.

"Why?" the befuddled Harry asked.

And what did the staff say?

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"You are the first customer who requested testing at our shop."