Bad IT, Even worse customer service
I normally try not to single out specific companies when commenting on IT systems, but I recently had an experience that was just so bad with Hutchinson Telecom’s Three mobile (www.three.com.hk) in Hong Kong I had to make an exception in the hope that someone with a bit of get-go at that organization might take some action!
First some background. I recently bought a pre-paid 2G phone number from Three in Hong Kong promising the ability to make and receive international calls for personal use and as a backup for the company phone. Little did I know it would be next to useless when traveling, and that Three Mobile would be so inept at taking my money from me as usually large companies are pretty good a taking your money in exchange for services. The Saga goes something like this:
Charged up the account using card vouchers from 7Eleven in HK before flying to Singapore – so far so good, although the length of the promotional messages on the robotic “press 1, 2 etc”. Arrived Singapore, took a couple of calls from Hong Kong, then a quiet beep and 10 seconds later the call is disconnected presumably because the credit has run out. Then the fun begins.
First tried to re-charge the phone account using an extra pre-paid card and code number. Sorry can’t call out on the mobile to do this, so had to use my company mobile to call the designated number – only to be told my number doesn’t exist. It turns out you need to call a different Hong Kong number (charging my company phone for the call) for 2G vs 3G phones. From an IT perspective you have a unique key or ID in the form of a phone number so the need for two different phone numbers escapes me – but perhaps it is result of the ubiquitous “different department” excuse we hear from Hong Kong companies so often? More on this later.
Then it seems a password is required since I am not calling from the phone the pre-paid account is attached to since that phone can’t call out from Singapore any more. The only way to set the password is in fact to call out from the pre-paid account phone, so it can’t be set outside of Hong Kong with customer support unable to do this for you either. So recharging the credit using pre-paid cards purchased at 7-eleven is not an option outside of Hong Kong. Of course this took approximately an hour on the phone with three/hutch customer support to determine with the usual “sorry not my department, let me transfer you” , ” sorry I don’t know, please hold for 15 minutes while I find someone who may know”, “[recorded message] This months promotion at three is….” and “try this and call us back”.
I even tried asking for a small credit on my account so I can call the number in HK with my phone and re-charge it – but apparently Three’s customer policy is designed to frustrate, inflexible and cost three a lot more in time. Not to mention their helpdesk staff have no initiative or familiarity with how their system even works whatsoever. Finally it was suggested I try to re-charge online via the the three website with my credit card, probably just to get me off the line so they could frustrate another customer.
Sounds easy right – wrong. Firstly having been involved with a lot of commercial website implementations http://www.three.com.hk – I can say this is a typical IT implementation where the end user or even intended purpose of the site hasn’t been considered. Primary example being normally you’d expect things like “recharge my phone”, “pay my bill” or sign up for x service to be easy to find, and probably on the home page. Unfortunately for this site I had to use the barely effective search function to find the re-charge.
Again departmentalism seems to be more important that reducing service calls or even inducing new customers or added value service purchase. Lots of missed opportunity here. Finally I locate the re-charge function after carefully searching on the 2G department of the site and failing to log on using several other logon and password prompt areas of the site – apparently the concept of single sign-on is not something these guys have heard of. Or perhaps the different departments just can’t work together to make it happen?
Unfortunately the re-charge function requires your phone number and a “check digit” – which you guessed it can only obtained by using a pre-paid card with >0 credit balance and in Hong Kong. Being in Singapore (the purpose of buying the pre-paid IDD card) and having 0 balance (the reason for re-charging) looks like I am out of luck. Fortunately for me, three also apparently doesn’t understand security, since I discover the check digit by simply trying all of the only 10 different possible combinations 0-9, getting the right number on my 5th try.
Great – now I can re-charge my phone and receive all those really important calls. Well actually no. Three utilizes a Singapore credit card company (why not Hong Kong?) which rejects the transaction with a message to call their support line. Credit to e-nets in Singapore for polite, speedy help however the issue turns out to be “sorry our servers are busy at this time, over capacity try later along with the staple catch-all helpdesk advice of “clear your browser cache”. About an hour later I get the transaction completed online recharging my phone using my credit card.
Or so I thought – it turns out after another long and frustrating call to Three Mobile Hong Kong helpdesk. My phone will be credited only after 2 business working days – my guess being it is a manual process behind the scenes. So the final solution – buy a Singtel mobile card and get up and running within 5 minutes with clear and concise instructions, advertising free.
So overall an expensive and poor experience with Hutchinson Telecom’s Three in Hong Kong. But from an IT perspective easily fixed I think. Here’s some ideas:
- Revamp the website using a commercial content management system with a low graphic mobile/pda version available. Structure navigation on customer needs, support and markets – not three’s internal business or department structure. Customer’s just want services and problems solved – they don’t care what department’s job it is. Oh and error messages should be helpful, not cryptic and written in poor grammar.
- The concept of 3G and 2G seperate businesses is a waste of time and confusing. Think functionality – for example Video and high bandwidth internet vs just a basic phone and approach it from this angle with a single phone number for support or re-charging and single sign-on on the website.
- Join some sort of pre-paid phone card alliance, so topup while travelling is possible or at least allow customers to give a credit card over the phone for instant top-up.
- Proper integration with a Hong Kong based online payment gateway which has adequate bandwidth to support the transaction, as well as the phone system backend – a 2 business working day wait in this day and age following credit card purchase online is kind of third world.
Sounds like it could be expensive to fix right? Actually probably not – by reducing support calls due to bad and inflexible systems as well as increased uptake of new subscribers plus added value services generated by a better online strategy – I think Hutchinson would come out on top. Not to mention keep its customers happy…
Uncategorized | seand | 
April 26, 2008 9:15 am
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