Nicholas M Ong

Did you hear? We won! Singapore is the official host of the very first Youth Olympic Games and we beat Moscow to the bid! Singapore Daily has more write up on it.

GST goes up. Ok, that one goes to the gahmen so I better shut up. ERP goes up. Ok, another gahmen one so again, better not speak up. Taxi fares, SMRT and whatever… All are ‘private companies’ right with no links or influence from the gahmen right? Actually, the cost of every darn thing has gone up. Hotels, restaurants and whatever you can think of. Hotels pricing have on the average increased prices by 10% - 30%. Blame it on inflation they tell you. Funny thing is, they claim that in order to continuously improve on and provide customers with what has come to ‘expected’ standards in service levels. With a 30% price hike, I do not see any noticeable difference in service levels.

So what’s my beef? StarHub Mobile is one of them. For months, I have been struggling to get my telecom provider to change my billing cycle. That part they finally sorted out after I’m not sure how many months later. Having to travel on business on ad-hoc notice and managing office hours between client meetings and other responsibilities, keeping track of my monthly telecom bills became a struggle. Even if I do check my bills, I hardly have to time to visit a self-serviced bill payment kiosk. So how? Thank goodness for Internet Banking and GIRO.

Now, you’d probably be thinking, so what’s the big deal right? I can pay for my StarHub bills via Internet Banking right? Answer is no. Not when your account number reads something like: 5.339xx.xx.xx.100000K. That is what happens when you have a corporate account. The problem is internet banking websites only allow the user to enter an account number no longer than 10 digits (or there abouts). So how, no choice lah. Pay by GIRO lah. As long as they don’t overcharge me (how would I know if I don’t check my bills?), I do not have to concern myself with issuing cheques and looking for a postbox to mail it or queue at a self-serviced kiosk every month.

A few months ago, I made some changes to my banking facilities and as a result, my bank account number changed. One would think that with today’s advances in security, technology and banking systems, any pre-approved banking arrangements I had with my previous account number would work seamlessly with my ‘new’ account number. Alas, as advanced as we are, all previous arrangements were cancelled and I had to start filling out numerous forms and signing them to link my services to the ‘new’ account number. Everything from my insurance payments to my broadband services and you guessed it, my mobile service with StarHub were affected.

So after raking up 2 months of bills in arrears with my telecom provider, I finally found the time to visit the Customer Service Centre at Raffles Places. I did 2 things.

1. Paid for my outstanding amount.
2. Requested to sign-up for GIRO arrangements all over again.

Filling out the form was straight forward and took me just about 2 minutes. Handed the form back to the lady and asked her if that was it and she said yes. Naturally, wanting to avoid having to make another trip down to Raffles Place just to pay for my bill, I asked her how long would it take to process my GIRO application. I was told it would take anything from 6-8 weeks. Isn’t that a ridiculously long time to process a one-paged form that I filled out in 2 minutes?

This morning, I was informed that my StarHub mobile bill is again in arrears 2 and half months after I filled out the ‘new’ GIRO application at the Raffles Place outlet. So I picked up the phone and gave StarHub a ring to find out just what was going on. Now, if there was something that I liked about being a corporate account customer with StarHub, it has to be the dedicated helpdesk. Instead of calling 1633 like must would, I dial in to 1800 888 88 88. On most occasions, I do not have to put up with the recorded message that sounds somewhat like:

“Thank you for calling StarHub. All our customer service officers are engaged at the moment. Your call IS IMPORTANT to us. Please hold and we will be with you shortly…”

Come on folks. We all know that there are times you’d probably have to wait up to an hour just to speak to a human being. Then again, the dedicated helpdesk with an auspicious number is probably the one and only thing that I find useful.

Ok, I did sidetrack there. As I was saying, I dialled in to the helpdesk. The officer ask me a couple of quick questions and put me on hold for no more than 20 seconds. Pretty quick right? Guess what was the reply I got? According to the officer, No GIRO application was received.

At that moment, the only thing that made sense to me was how StarHub screwed up yet again. Apart for waiting for a ‘new’ GIRO application form to arrive in the mail. Then I’ve got to mail it back and wait another 6-8 weeks all over again. How can I be assured that the next GIRO application will not get ‘lost’ again in the mail? However incredible, it did get ‘misplaced’ the last time when I filled out the form and handed it over personally to the counter staff at StarHub’s Customer Service Centre in Raffles Place? At this point, StarHub really sucks according to my books. Comfort DelGro isn’t doing any better in my opinion. As of last evening, I didn’t see a cab for hire in town at 21:30hrs. So much for the last round of price hikes.

I’m not all that excited about the Singapore Youth Olympic Games in 2010. Yet in many ways, I’m very happy we won the bid to host the games against Russia. It’s an achievement that is of no small feat. My question is are we ready as a nation? When rhetorical and lame company policies and unflattering service standards is so apparent across industries? Oh… I better shut the hell up before I get my ass whopped by Comfort DelGro and StarHub. Good thing they are all ‘private companies’ with no links to the gahmen right? Anyway, mine is just an isolated case so what the heck right?