Online Customer Disservice

With Manila’s traffic perpetually in knots, the convenience brought by online transactions can hardly be overstated. For example, why waste time going to a travel agency when you can get your e-ticket through the Internet? Not only are the rates usually cheaper, you save on time and aggravation as well

Well, that’s most of the time. Unfortunately, some of our local vendors still have to figure out how to do things right. Here are a few online horror stories I’ve encountered.

The pitfalls of online flight booking

The top (dis)honors go to Cebu Pacific. Their website cannot seem to process online payments properly. I checked with my bank and they said there is nothing wrong on their end. It’s the Cebu Pacific system that keeps messing up! So much for the convenience of booking flights online. It ain’t happenin’ with Cebu Pacific!

Because of Cebu Pacific’s incompetence, I have been forced to turn to Philippine Airlines more than once. At least their website’s online booking actually works. But PAL isn’t off the hook. There are pitfalls there as well.

One “feature” of the PAL website is that when you book a round-trip flight, the system automatically advances your return date by about a week or so. You will have to manually change the return date if you are flying back sooner or later than the date “chosen” for you.

That may not sound bad at all until you realize that when you are booking a flight near the end of the current month, the system changes the moth as well as the date. More than one hapless customer has failed to notice this and forgot to change the month to the correct one if the return flight was sooner. I was one of those, and I know of at least one other person who was a victim of this “feature” as well.

When I complained at a PAL office, I was informed that they would not allow me to change my booking. How about a refund? I filled out a complaint form and received a reply through e-mail. Bit after a few messages with useless apologies and excuses, the PAL personnel stopped responding. They didn’t even have the courtesy to offer a refund or another ticket (it’s not like the company can’t afford it). PAL’s customer service sucks big time.

Useless hotlines

Customer hotlines aren’t new, but they are essential to keeping customers happy. Not all problems can be pigeon-holed and solved through pre-recorded messages. In my experience, a live person on the other end of the line is required to solve many problems.  Talking with customers also allows organizations to get valuable feedback and to get a heads-up on developing issues before they blow up into expensive public relations disasters.

Having said that, I was very dismayed to find out that Cebu Pacific’s hotline is just as  useless as their website Try calling 7020888 and chances are no live person will ever answer you. The same goes for their number in Cebu. Perhaps they are tired of answering tons of complaints from justifiably irate customers.

Who else could be hiding from their customers? Try calling PLD’T's 171 and you’ll probably spend an eternity and a half trying to figure out how to reach a real person. The brain-dead system is long on audio advertising and short on live service representatives who will actually listen. The same goes for their DSL promo hotline where you will be an old man before you can talk to a Customer (dis)Service Representative.

Apparently I am not alone. Try googling for PLDT DSL and check out all the blog entries complaining about their unbelievably lousy service. But is anyone in the PLDT management listening? When PLDT had a monopoly 20 years ago, things were like this too. Looks like their rotten corporate attitude hasn’t really changed.

The customer is always right

At least that’s how it’s supposed to be. How can these companies (and others like them) think they can get away with such sloppy service?

Well, maybe they can’t, provided people are not willing to put up with the abuse. Irate customers can take their business — and cash — elsewhere. And they can make a big stink, which is wht I’m doing right now. I figure if enough people complain loudly, those clueless managers will have to take notice sooner or later.

Have you been shafted recently? Blog about it. Write a letter to your local newspaper. Teach those companies a lesson. They deserve whatever they get. After all, they are sticking it to you as well.