MAN FROM ESCALATE

 My to-ing and fro-ing with Starhub is finally over.

Although it took some effort on my part, I am glad I did it. For mainly two reasons.  

 First was obviously the money involved. I would have had to pay for:

# a supposedly extra router costing $300 that was not needed and was not installed;

# a transport charge that was waived (because it was not my fault) but still appeared on my bill, and

# a charge for HBO package that was supposed to have been FOC together with the Premier League channels. This was the offer made by the marketing officer when I opted for the upgraded TV services.

The other reason is to help raise awareness about checking your bills from some service providers. They can be slipshod as was clearly shown in my case.

I have related how tedious it was dealing with such providers in my previous post.

But here's the good news! The narrative changed after I emailed Starhub's CEO on Aug 23. I told him about my frustrations and asked him to read my blog.

Two days later, a soft-spoken  Starhub executive named John called to ask about my problems. I gave him the works.

Imagine receiving a bill that had three questionable items on it!  He understood why I was upset.  

It was apparent that he was specially assigned to deal with customers like me. He disclosed that he was from a section called Escalate. 

To cut a long story short, the Man From Escalate managed to remove all three charges from my bill even though he took about a week to do all the necessary checks.

My only concession was that I would not have the HBO channels for free. I didn't quibble over this as I am not into any of the old-time shows.

My hope is that John would realise what a mess the telco is in, at least where my case is concerned, and inform his Big Boss about it.

The ball is, ultimately, at BB's feet.

PS. I have another story to tell about the telco's upgraded TV service. Maybe for another day.

Tale of two telcos

It's been four years since I last posted. I am at it again as I find that life as a senior can be pretty frustrating, to say the least.

There are so many more challenges.  Especially when organisations, both public and private, that we older folks have to deal with, do not fully realised that this group of people are now slower, less alert and mobile, hard of hearing and often blurry-eyed.

We know there will be many more of us in the coming years as the authorities keep reiterating this fact to raise awareness.

So, what I do not understand is, why are those people involved in serving this group of seniors not give more thought on how to ease the problems facing them?

I know I've been slow in raising this. But two recent incidents involving telcos got me upset again.

One concerns telco Singtel.  Two latest bills -- me and my wife's -- have charges that do not seem right.

So I tried calling Singtel to find out the reason. And that was when the frustrations started. Press this number and that number but all I heard was a recorded voice.

 At that stage, one couldn't help but wonder whether the telco was trying to avoid talking to the customer at all costs.

Then I decided I should call a different number. It worked. There was a human at the other end!!! Turned out to be a business line. Hmmm, made me wonder even more.

I managed to speak to J. Long story short, he said he would try to get the charge for my wife's "usage" waived and call me back.

Guess what? He never did.

This morning (Aug 22), wiser and with another bill in hand, I called another business line. Spoke to a woman who put me through to a customer service officer named Devi.

Even though I had to wait more than 10 minutes, I was glad I didn't have to go through the pressing-buttons routine again.

Devi was very understanding when I told her about my problems -- and frustrations.

She said my wife's non-usage charge had been waived. She did the same for mine. Happy ending!

The second incident involved Starhub. It was easier to speak to a human in this case, but he was a call centre person who spoke with an accent that was hard to comprehend.

Here, the frustrations were numerous, arising from my decision to upgrade my cable TV plan.

1.  Starhub billing  is totally confusing. If I had not called to query and verify, I wouldn't have known what the charges were for.

2. The various sections apparently did not know what each one of them was doing. A charge that was already waived was still in the bill I received. A Starhub woman had called earlier to confirm.

3. The call centre person was hesistant and had diffculty answering my queries. He had to excuse himself three times to check and check.

4. The telco has a serious communication problem among themselves and with its customers,  both orally and in writing.

The customer service officer says someone will call me in 24 hours to explain. So it is still a running story.

Stay tuned.

y