Mobile phone companies, please listen to your customers

The growth of mobile social network is also driving revenues up. But what continues to be a drag is the quality of service the celcos or even telcos provide. There are problems still with basic services such as SMS and voice calls. You still get people complaining about delayed SMS and call dropping, which are basics in mobility. 

 

Let’s just not dwell on the many complaints on mobile or fixed broadband; that’s too painful for those who have landed with celcos/telcos that do not listen to their customers. Instead these celcos/telcos so often blame consumers for having faulty equipment. Living in denial and saying all is well is often the easy way out. But in the longer term consumers will look to migrate to another network and whether the celco/telcos are bothered about it, it is indeed a heavy price to pay.

 

Celcos and even telcos should stop choking their networks with more customers just to drive up profits. True, they are a business entity and need to make money for the services they provide but does the service offering commensurate with the service quality? Telcos/celcos should re-look at their model and take the complaints of their frustrated users seriously and do something about it. Make that change and not be so engrossed with driving up profits.

 

Celcos in the country rake in up to 35% in margins versus their regional peers so there are reasons to give better quality service for that kind of returns. But not all celcos and telcos are unresponsive to their customers’ expectations. Two days ago DiGi.Com Bhd apologised to its million customers for service disruptions that lasted just over two hours. To compensate for the inconvenience, the users were offered 50% discount on airtime. That is goodwill and kudos to DiGi and its CEO Johan Dennelind for doing it the right way by taking the matter seriously, thereby ensuring its customers stay loyal.

 

We can only wish there will be more celcos and telcos which realise that their services are bad, be it mobile and/or broadband services, and try to improve on their customer experience. They must remember that the customer pays for services; if payment is delayed there is service disruption and to reconnect there is again a fee. So the customer is often just paying for a substandard service just because he or she needs the service. The celcos/telcos must be mindful that customers cannot be wrong all the time and that they have rights too.

 

● B.K. SIDHU is deputy new editor. She likes to think that everyone believes in goodwill.