Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Feb 5, 2013
Pelephone's lousy response to network outage
According to Globes , Pelephone has announced a compensation package to make up for an outage of their mobile phone network the other day that lasted for a few hours. They announced that they will offer affected customers a choice of 60 minutes of free calls within Israel, 60 minutes of free calls abroad, and 500mb of free internet surfing.
I don't know how they came up with these choices - 60 minutes of free calls within Israel does not have the same value as 60 minutes of free calls abroad. The choices should have been 3 options of more or less equal, or similar, value.
But really the entire compensation offer is completely worthless for most people anyway. Many or most customers anyway are subscribed through packages that offer unlimited phone calls or have such high limits that never get reached anyway. Same with Internet usage - most have plans that offer unlimited Internet usage, or the limit is high enough that 500mb wont really be a useful addition. This is not going to help most customers, will not satisy them, and therefore is a lousy response on their part.
They should have offered something like a 100 NIS credit on the next bill (or whatever amount would be considered reasonable)..
This is a good example of being disconnected from reality, a company not understanding their customers and their needs, and they are going to suffer because of it. The days of lousy customer service are long gone. Customers want more and better nowadays.
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Jan 14, 2013
Forcing Better Customer Service
If you won't provide reasonable customer service, the courts might punish you for it.
In what looks to me like a precedent, CityPass, the operator of the Jerusalem Light-Rail, had to pay two passengers who sued them in small claims court for poor customer service by which they suffered aggravation and anguish.
The two passengers suffered the famously oppressive behavior of the Light-Rail inspectors, where they flood the public with fines even when the problems were the fault of faulty machinery or other situations in which the passenger did not really deserve the fine, or where a lenient approach was appropriate. Often the fines are appealed and the main office at times voids the fine, but the inspectors themselves are very heavy-handed.
1 passenger in the lawsuit sued City Pass because when he got on the train there was a large crowd in front of the machine. Before he could get to the machine to use his smart card and pay for the ride, the inspector already wrote him up and fined him.
The second passenger in the lawsuit said he had swiped the card, and even saw the machine light up indicating the approval of the card. the problem was the machine had not "buzzed", which indicates he had not actually paid for the ride. The inspector wrote him up and fined him.
In both cases, upon appeal the main office immediately canceled the fines based on the explanation of the passengers.
The courts, taking into account that the fines had been canceled immediately, did not require CityPass to pay court costs, but they did require them to pay the passengers 720 NIS for their anguish. Even though the fines were canceled, the judge said, no apology at all had been sent for the behavior of the inspector.
During the defense CityPass denied that it has instructed the inspectors to operate with a heavy-hand towards passengers, but later they did admit that inspectors had been instructed to follow the rules precisely and not use their own judgement or to weigh the arguments in any specific instance.
(source: Mynet)
While I think CityPass inspectors have been too heavy-handed and unreasonable, I find it interesting that the court would fine the company for poor customer service. The fines had been canceled, but no letter of apology had been sent.
Perhaps this should go out as a warning to all companies, especially public companies, in Israel that they should improve their customer service, or else they will be forced to...
In what looks to me like a precedent, CityPass, the operator of the Jerusalem Light-Rail, had to pay two passengers who sued them in small claims court for poor customer service by which they suffered aggravation and anguish.
The two passengers suffered the famously oppressive behavior of the Light-Rail inspectors, where they flood the public with fines even when the problems were the fault of faulty machinery or other situations in which the passenger did not really deserve the fine, or where a lenient approach was appropriate. Often the fines are appealed and the main office at times voids the fine, but the inspectors themselves are very heavy-handed.
1 passenger in the lawsuit sued City Pass because when he got on the train there was a large crowd in front of the machine. Before he could get to the machine to use his smart card and pay for the ride, the inspector already wrote him up and fined him.
The second passenger in the lawsuit said he had swiped the card, and even saw the machine light up indicating the approval of the card. the problem was the machine had not "buzzed", which indicates he had not actually paid for the ride. The inspector wrote him up and fined him.
In both cases, upon appeal the main office immediately canceled the fines based on the explanation of the passengers.
The courts, taking into account that the fines had been canceled immediately, did not require CityPass to pay court costs, but they did require them to pay the passengers 720 NIS for their anguish. Even though the fines were canceled, the judge said, no apology at all had been sent for the behavior of the inspector.
During the defense CityPass denied that it has instructed the inspectors to operate with a heavy-hand towards passengers, but later they did admit that inspectors had been instructed to follow the rules precisely and not use their own judgement or to weigh the arguments in any specific instance.
(source: Mynet)
While I think CityPass inspectors have been too heavy-handed and unreasonable, I find it interesting that the court would fine the company for poor customer service. The fines had been canceled, but no letter of apology had been sent.
Perhaps this should go out as a warning to all companies, especially public companies, in Israel that they should improve their customer service, or else they will be forced to...
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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.
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