Saturday May 7, 2011
By LEONG HUNG YEE
hungyee@thestar.com.my
“TAKE it or leave it”. Sounds harsh? Believe it or not, that pretty much sums up the service level of certain local service providers in the country's telecommunications sector. Generally, while telcos and Internet service providers are striving to provide better user experience, poor service largely remains a huge headache for consumers. In fact, many consumers wonder if the rating scorecard they are occasionally asked to fill up by their respective telco providers actually is an exercise in futility, given the lack of improvement in the service quality.
When asked to comment on this, Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) group CEO Datuk Seri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa says: “For me, because I am the CEO, I will never be satisfied with the service level ever. The idea is to have constant improvement. That's what we need to do.”
According to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), poor service makes up the bulk or 35% of consumers complaints, followed by content (16.7%), bill and charging (13.9%) and SMS (10.1%). The poor service coverage formed 3.5% of complaints recorded by the regulator and no service coverage 4.3%.
The high percentage of complaints due to poor service may not be a reflection of the real situation given that they only involve cases recorded by MCMC.
“There is a significant gap between expected and perceived service quality by service providers. There are many reasons for this. In some cases, it's the technical issue,” an analyst says.
Another analyst says there is no doubt that service quality in some areas is great but not in others. As such, more improvement needs to be done to solve consumer woes as opposed to collecting complaints and doing little about them.
“Perhaps the number is not reflective because people find it troublesome to file a complaint as they end up on the phone for at least 10 minutes, being entertained by some advertisement or music, before they can actually speak to someone,” says the analyst. “That in itself could form part of a complaint!” he quips.
Naturally, industry players acknowledge the fact that there's a gaping room for improvement in customer service levels and, as a result, continue to invest to provide customers with a better experience.
But in terms of service level, have they (service providers) “arrived”? “No”, says Celcom Axiata Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly. “We need to build the foundation that will shift from voice to data first. That's what everybody is doing and must do. And that's what we are doing now. The foundation for better services is being built even as we speak. Before this, people thought they can use the voice foundation. It doesn't work anymore. It does not evolve as much as data,” Shazalli says, adding that Celcom has invested tremendously to improve its service level.
V for vandalism
“On the front, you've got to conduct training for the customers service, the systems, network and others. We are putting money into improving customers service,” Shazalli says, adding that there are glitches in the company's network due to rampant vandalism over the past year, causing it to lose RM40mil worth of equipment.
“There's rampant vandalism in the country. It is not just affecting us but the industry. Celcom has recorded more than 2,000 cases of vandalism, whereby 1,010 cases involved dropped calls and intermittent disruptions,” Shazalli says.
Of the 2,000 cases, 1,000 of those took more than a week a restore, he adds.
“And this is a national crisis for us. We rarely have dropped calls in areas like Sunway and then, boom, someone decided to steal something. This is one challenge. The minute the fibre is cut, the whole sector is disrupted and it's happening everyday with an average of 3 cases a day. They (vandals) think there is copper in there,” Shazalli says.
He says the other problem that Celcom is facing now is the restoration. “Two thousand cases means 2,000 people have to go on the ground to fix that problem. Those are the same engineers who built and maintain the network. Restoration takes more than seven days and that's not acceptable by the public. They want a maximum blackout of two hours!”
Maxis Bhd executive vice-president, network and technology Mark Dioguardi says its network is also affected by vandalism to a certain extent.
“We spent a lot of time on preventive and security measures. It happens every time and everywhere. It's affecting the industry,” he says, adding that Maxis has been hard at work to “repair things quickly”.
Dioguardi says vandalism is a huge challenge for the company, particularly in recent months. However, he admits that consumers may also experience service interruption due to scheduled service maintenance and upgrading of software, but such routine work is usually carried out in the wee hours of the morning where less people will be affected.
Operational challenges
Zamzamzairani says TM is constantly improving Unifi's service level but for the time being, there is no data on the nature of the complaints.
“We don't have the numbers yet. UniFi is a new service and we are tracking.”
“Putting in UniFi is not the same. You have to put fibre at home so the installation will take a bit longer and it's tougher to do,” he says.
Zamzamzairani acknowledges problems such as missed appointments by contractors and customers complaints, among others.
“Missed appointment for example. We promised we will come but never show up. I agree ... there are pockets. We listen to them and we are taking action. The key is constant improvement. More than anyone I would like to work on it. We just have to keep working on it to make sure it's happening,” he says.
Shazalli says customers touch points are one of the factors that set one telco apart from the other. “Where do you go when you have data problem? We need customers touch points to solve problems related to pure data only or you have to go to the phone store and talk to the dealer ... a lot of that is happening. Going forward, you will see phone shop and data services shop merge into one as we speak.”
“If you do the checklist from one to 10, we are about six. It's still a long way to go. Six being all the foundations that we have in place. That's another four more points to get a perfect 10.''
At what cost?
While service level may be an issue consumers are forced to endure, they also need to contend with the steep pricing for fibre broadband service.
Some opine that the pricing for TM's UniFi packages appear high and the same goes for Maxis' Home Services a fixed-line broadband Internet service.
Understandably, both TM and Maxis have brushed aside market talk that there is a so-called cartel in pricing for their fibre broadband services.
“Absolutely not! If you look at the region, it is very competitive,” says Maxis' Dioguardi, adding that the deal Maxis has with TM is “good enough to sign” and there is no such condition that it has to price its packages similarly to TM.
Maxis is offering a standard package with a speed of 4Mbps and a quota of 30 GB for RM128. UniFi's entry level package is priced at RM149 per month and it comes with high-speed broadband, IPTV (Internet protocol TV), free voice calls and some other offerings.
TM's Zamzamzairani says there's “no way” the two players can form a price cartel as on the retail side, they are competitors.
“It is a value proposition on the packages offered to our subscribers. Our retail side are competing all-out to get customers,” he adds.
Your right as a consumer
Not be known to many consumers, there actually exists a service level agreement which spells out the commitment of service providers which binds them to meet the minimum performance promised, as per the agreement. If there are perceived breaches, consumers can file a complaint with the MCMC.
A quick check on MCMC's website revealed that the task is rather simple. MCMC provides an online complaint communication channel for consumers to lodge complaints on any issues related to the communications and multimedia sector. It has also listed the other communication options for consumers to get in touch with the regulator.
Clearly, a great deal more needs to be done by local service providers. The end result, of course, is a win-win for consumers and telecom players.
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