PLDT can suck my rockhard stainless steel nuts!

Day 64

I’ve been contacting PLDT’s repair hotline 173 for the past 6 or 7 days because our phone line has been very shitty for almost two weeks now. The problem started with just a small static noise in the background which has worsened to the point that I sometimes can no longer hear the person on the other end of the line. As a paying customer the only logical thing for me to do is keep (bugging) calling PLDT every now and then for follow up (because they haven’t really done anything from the start). And as incompetent phone representatives, all they’ve been verbatimly telling me is they’ll do line tests before they can send a technician and shit.

So I called them up yet again this morning to follow up on the same issue. A robotic-sounding lady whose name I didn’t get because the line was so terribly crappy I could barely hear her greet me picked up on the other end. It was safe to assume though that she woke up on the wrong side of the bed given that the automated voice prompt sounded way friendlier than she did. She took all my info and proceeded in asking me what the problem is:

Me: Follow up lang ng problema namin sa line. Kung napapansin mo static pa rin diba?

Lady: Sir based sa records namin closed na po itong issue na ito.

Me: Ha? Bakit daw?

Lady: Baka sir nung tumawag kami dyan may nagsabing okay na yung linya nyo.

I asked my mother and she did remember someone from PLDT calling but she did not confirm that the line was fixed.

Me: Pa-open na lang ulit ng trouble ticket kasi maingay pa rin yung line e. (As if she couldn’t obviously tell).

Lady: (Gave out her standard spiel) Sige sir forward na lang namin to sa &*^%&^%& (line was static).

Me: I’m sorry ano ulit yun? (This is when the line started to get bitchy.)

Lady: Ifo-forward na lang namin po ito sa *&%^&%&^%.

Me: Sorry ulit paki-ulit lang yung last na…

Lady: (DIAL TONE)

Ok. The shitty line I can live with. The delayed technical service I can take. But a customer service rep HANGING UP on me is like a kick on the fuckin’ groin for yours truly. And I haven’t even started going apeshit crazy and cursing at the phone rep for her to hang up on me like that!

I guess my being in the call center industry for more than two years contributes to the great annoyance that a simple call getting deliberately disconnected brought me. You see, hanging up or even accidentally disconnecting a live, monitored customer call is equivalent to three venial sins or one mortal sin. In my job, should the call get disconnected from the customer’s end, we MUST get back to him or her in a way of doing an outbound call. That’s how dead serious customer service is and PLDT should re-train their people in order for them to understand the true meaning of the term.

Going back to my fateful experience, pissed that I was, I dialed Eastern Telecoms’ Customer Support hotline. A well-mannered young chap by the name of RJ answered the phone and gave me all the info I needed. I basically asked him how much a phone line would be and if I could also get a bundled DSL service with it. He explained to me that they initially need to check the availability of the service in our vicinity and if our area qualifies, he can get us connected within a week or two. He explained the features of the phone service and how much it will cost. Nevermind if he placed me on hold every now and then (perhaps to ask somebody else or to check on their database), he made sure that I get whatever it is I needed to know about. He was even polite to remind me about the DSL package that I also asked about at the beginning of the call. So I asked him to sign me up for the P1,100 package which includes the phone line plus the 128 kbps DSL connection (that’s good enough for surfing Porntube and the likes). Before I hung up I informed him about how commendable his professionalism was.

PLDT should learn to know that one dissatisfied customer (who happens to blog around and never stops until his annoyance is relayed to a large number of people) is equivalent to a number of potential or existing customers who would choose to drop their service. I guess all I’m trying to say is that PLDT can take their shitty service with them and flush it down the toilet where it belongs.

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** This is a paid advertisement for Eastern telecoms. NOT! **