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Jan 27, 2011
Customer Service In Israel Improves - Example: Bezeq
People always complain about customer service in Israel, based on the history of bad service. The truth is that customer service in Israel has improved dramatically over the past 10 years. Many companies have representatives that listen to your complaint, are polite and helpful and try to get the problem solved to everyones satisfaction, and even reasonable compensation is no longer unusual.
Here is a good example of how far we have come in that regard.
On Tuesday Bezeq had a few hours of technical difficulty that led to the phone system across the country not working properly. Many customers suffered seriously. While in a home it might not be so bad, though it could be as well, businesses that rely on the telephone suffered serious losses - I read in the paper about a taxi stand that claimed they had almost no business during the outage, when usually they are very busy with about 5000 calls a day, leading to thousands of shekel of damage. A pizza store had no telephone business, which is a major component of their business, causing them tremendous losses. The pizza shop and taxi stand mentioned in the paper that they were each considering suing Bezeq for the loss of business.
Bezeq fixed the problem and said they would compensate their customers, probably to the skepticism of many customers. They came through quickly, announcing today that next week all phone calls will be free, up to 1000 minutes of calls, from Sunday morning until Saturday night. There is no need to register with them to receive this offer, as it will be automatically applied.
I don't know if 1000 minutes of free calls will make up for everybody's losses, as businesses might have lost more than that and perhaps a businesses losses were calls received rather than outgoing (for example, how many minutes of outgoing calls does a pizza shop or taxi stand really need anyway?), but it is good public compensation. Perhaps those businesses that were affected in ways that this will not make up for are being given other forms of compensation on a more individual basis.
Here is a good example of how far we have come in that regard.
On Tuesday Bezeq had a few hours of technical difficulty that led to the phone system across the country not working properly. Many customers suffered seriously. While in a home it might not be so bad, though it could be as well, businesses that rely on the telephone suffered serious losses - I read in the paper about a taxi stand that claimed they had almost no business during the outage, when usually they are very busy with about 5000 calls a day, leading to thousands of shekel of damage. A pizza store had no telephone business, which is a major component of their business, causing them tremendous losses. The pizza shop and taxi stand mentioned in the paper that they were each considering suing Bezeq for the loss of business.
Bezeq fixed the problem and said they would compensate their customers, probably to the skepticism of many customers. They came through quickly, announcing today that next week all phone calls will be free, up to 1000 minutes of calls, from Sunday morning until Saturday night. There is no need to register with them to receive this offer, as it will be automatically applied.
I don't know if 1000 minutes of free calls will make up for everybody's losses, as businesses might have lost more than that and perhaps a businesses losses were calls received rather than outgoing (for example, how many minutes of outgoing calls does a pizza shop or taxi stand really need anyway?), but it is good public compensation. Perhaps those businesses that were affected in ways that this will not make up for are being given other forms of compensation on a more individual basis.
Labels:
customer service,
Israel
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I thought I read that the thousand minutes of free calls from Bezek only applies to calls to cellphones.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I suspect that Bezek (or Nezek [damage], as the satirists call them) wanted to announce something concrete quickly because of the awful publicity which they received from the original problem. I don't see the thousand minutes of free calls, which must be used within one week, as truly compensating people, especially businesses as Rafi G. pointed out in the initial post.
Maybe Bezek will provide some additional compensation more seriously aimed at the losses people suffered. Or maybe the nickname "Hevrat Nezek" really still does apply to them!
Yes, but they still make no provision for English speaking olim who call to either get info, or want to pay their bill by cc, there is no English option and it is impossible to get any satisfaction via the bezeq line. Very frustrating. They are immensely arrogant as a company. They respect the Arabs and russians better than the Jews from English speaking countries. It takes time to learn Ivrit, they are impossible. They run their offices like army camps. This is one angry bezeq customer!
ReplyDeleteIn my past 3 travels to Israel, I have still found overall customer service in Israel to be a long shot from favorable. Keep trying though.
ReplyDelete