Wednesday, March 22, 2006

inefficiency at it's best

this is not what i wanted to write about today but as i was going through the comments in my blog and replying to them, i am also making a call to 'ass-tero' (i am so tempted to use the more vulgar version but i shall refrain).

i am so frustrated right now that it will be a very good idea to stay far far away from me. ah pek in port dickson and 5xmom in penang will probably be safe from my wrath but the rest of you, watch out!

what's ticking me off? that phonecall that i am making to the cable company! the one that i called one hour ago! and is still on the line......waiting! i decided to subscribe (or at this point in time, attempting to subscribe) to this month's block office movies. deciding that the best option will be to call them to activate the service, i gave them a call two days ago.

i was asked to wait....."there are currently 10 phonecalls ahead of you".......

damn! i hung up immediately and tried their website. it was easy and jiffy. i completed the application within 5 minutes and was told that the service will be activated in 1 hour. great! internet is really the miracle of modern living!

unfortunately, when i check the service that night, 8 hours later, the service was not up....as expected. so, hanging my head low and giving in to their inefficiency, i gave them another call. at 10pm, i was still put on hold........"there are currently 10 phonecalls ahead of you"..........who the hell calls astero in the middle of the night?!?!?! what are they doing there? operating a phone-sex service?!

i gave up that night.

this morning, i got up bring and early......and gave them a call. at 8am, it was already......."there are currently 5 phonecalls ahead of you........" the office only opens from 8am to 12pm daily! it really makes you wonder. were these 5 people sitting beside their phones, bitting their nails and watching the clock tick to the fateful 8:00am, then grabbing the earpiece and punching in the numbers as quickly as they could? damn again! since i had to bring kor-kor to school, i gave up for the third time.

ok, the minute i got back, i dialled astero's no. and was all prepared for a long wait. i got the usual "there are 10 phonecalls ahead of you". why is it almost always 10 phonecalls? do they keep people on the line until there are at least 10 people before they pick up the first phonecall? i can just imagine those lady operators sitting around eating their breakfast and catching up on the latest gossips whilst the light is blinking away on the telephone system.

i waited.....and waited....and waited. it dwindled to 5 phonecalls.........and then 5 phonecalls......and 5 phonecalls. there seems to be a hiccup with caller no. 5. i wouldn't have mind the wait so much if they didn't insist that i have to "press no. 2 if you would like to continue waiting" every minute. comeon, do you mean that after all this wait, people will give up their line in the queue? i mean, if i did, i would have just hung up the phone, idiot! if i am still on the line, you will be safe to think that i DO want to continue waiting. what is this? which idiot thought of this? someone programmed this to play with our mind! do they expect someone to say "no....i don't want to wait but i just like to stay on the phone......" and so that's why they need to double-confirm that you are still on the line because you want to wait and not just for the fun of it.

as it is, i had to type a few words on this post, keep my ears open for "press 2....." then rush over to the phone and press 2 before coming back to figure out where i have left off. and just as i remembered, i have to rush over and press 2 again. damn!

caller no. 5 took almost half an hour before it slowly dwindled to caller no. 4, 3, 2, 1 and then "please hold on while we transfer you to the operator....". yes! yes! yes! i waited with baited breath.......

the minute the operator picked up the phone, i said sweetly "would you believe that i have been waiting for one hour?". you wouldn't believe what happened after that? that bloody bitch hung up on me! after all that wait! *&^%$#@! if i could only get her name!

so, please, for those of you out there with nothing better to do, please, i beg you, log into their website (http://www.astro.com.my/v5/customer/contact.asp) and give them a piece of your mind too. i just did (and a piece of my behind, my back, my mouth, my eyes and my hand too!)

forget even about the story where i had to call a dozen times just to change my address when i moved. seven months down the road, the bills are still sent to the old address. sigh! same company, same inefficient system.

the sad thing about this is that the company's service used to be very efficient and fast. is this the malaysian way?

6 comments:

5xmom.com said...

Hahaha, that day my hubby phoned them and wanted to tiu 99 them but he got '80 phonecalls'. LOL. Cos they billed us wrongly. CCB company knows when to charge us for new services but always forget to bill us lower for services we had cancelled. Tius.

sengkor said...

funny now everywhr i went i see ppl complaints abt astro telephone queuing issues. Blogs and newspapers.. all these people only knows how to charge money. come to services, sucks!

Admin said...

and today's paper reported that astro made a net profit of Rm. 228.8 mil on a revenue of Rm. 2 bil. so what do they care. you can wait till the kambing come home.
i've disconnected mine already.

King's wife said...

oh, I've had my fair share of 'screaming down the phone' with that KNN company as well. Things only got underway when I demanded to speak to someone who can help me, there and then!
Don't give me any nonsense like...'let me check on that and we'll call you back'. They NEVER do.
Get that one person's name and direct number. Keep calling and hassling until you get what you want.
It's really that pathetic, and to think that we are paying for such services. Aigh....real fucked up!

me said...

eh.....what happened...i replied to the comments this morning....but it never appear here....now i'm censoring my own comments ah? too lazy to reply again.....we'll see if it turns up again later :-p

me said...

5xmom: kakakak...i feel better now that i know your hubby had "80phonecalls". i wonder what the operators were doing....eating their nasi lemak and painting their toe nails green.

seng kor-kor: why didn't you tell me about these complaints before? if i had known, i would have been more prepared mentally. i don[t know why...but i have never heard of these complaints before.

ah pek: pssst...let me tell you a secret....astro signed an agreement with telekom whereby telekom will cut them a share of the profit for keeping us on the line. that's why lah we were kept on the line for so long. now you know!

king's wife: sob! sob! i am so touched that everybody commiserates with me. it's a case of "tai sek chak sei hai" (big stone pushing on dead crab)

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