Yet another entry about what's wrong with Hong Kong's customer service

I believe here that perhaps in some ways Hong Kong's customer service may have been better in the 1970's, before technology. In many ways, technology just ruins Hong Kong's already dismal customer service. It hasn't empowered businesses to do more, instead it has created gaps of customer vortexes. Problem-solving has been replaced with rehearsed scripts. Customer files are replaced with broken databases. Telephone representatives are replaced with automated lines that hang up on you. Companies have embraced technology, but their business practices remains outdated. The combination of two don't mix.

Even simple things get screwed up - from updating billing information to getting a new PIN on your bank account.

Consider this - I need to use a password to enter my file with my (newer) Internet Service Provider (PCCW - Netvigator)'s site. I go to their website, it asks me to login.

Welcome to NETVIGATOR Customer Service Website !

	Login ID: netvigator.com Password: Forgot Password Forgot Login ID/email address

I forgot my password - it's something generated they gave me and the sheet is at home, and the password is already saved on my home computer. I don't have it. I click on "Forgot Password".
This is the screen:

Contact Us

You can reach us by sending email or calling our hotline.
Email: custserv@netvigator.com
Hotline: 1833 833 (Business Hours: 9am to 9pm)

For more information, please check FAQ.

You can also send us the following Inquiry Form...

So this Internet company knows how to provide Internet service, know how to make a website, but doesn't know how to retrieve a password? It asks me to fill out a form to get it! I'm hitting my head in disbelief. They have reached the 21st century technology, but have missed out on 21st century tools.

I relent. I fill out the form.

I forgot my password for

DO NOT RESET.
send me the password.

This is what they sent me.

Our Reference:######

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for emailing NETVIGATOR.

With regards to your email, I understand that you have lost your password. Unfortunately, due to Personal Data (Privacy) issues, we cannot retrieve your password and check for you. Therefore, we could only be able to reset the password for you.

If you would like us to reset your password, would you please fax us the request with a copy of your HKID, registered customer name, Login ID, service installation address, signature along with your contact number and email reference number #921491 to 2888 0118. Upon receipt of your fax, we shall reset the password for you to the first 6 characters of your HKID. (i.e. if HKID is A123456(A), the password is a12345).

We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any further enquiries, please feel free to email us again or speak with our Hotline representatives directly at 1833-833.

Yours sincerely,
Jerry Tang
NETVIGATOR Email Team
Contact us: custserv@netvigator.com

Hello Hong Kong businesses.
Technology has welcomed you to the 21st century.
We hope your business practices would come too.

tirade tour

Misleading advertising really peeves me. And I was near my last straw last week.

A friend and I were out scouting a restaurant to dine in in Mong Kok.

Outside a restaurant I peered a menu offering. "$59 and up" it says on the menu display, with pictures.

After waiting inside, we are offered a seat in the busy restaurant. We browse the menu and I am looking for the advertised special. Can't find it.

I ask the waiter for one of the names of the special - he points out to an item at $104HKD - same item, but no where near the $59HKD advertised price. The waiter is very busy. I'm getting peeved.

I go outside and take a photo of the ad. I come in to sit. "I want this."
"No more. We have this special."
He gives me a sheet advertising something else for $62HKD.
"I don't want that, I want this."
"No more. That was before."
"Not before, this is now. I just took this photo. It's outside."
"No more!" he is getting angry. "You want this, you take this. You don't, you take something else."
I'm in disbelief. "That is dishonest! Why do you have this poster outside?" The limits of my Chinese are approaching. I'm losing my words.
"Above $59!" he says "These are $62." he runs off.
I'm talking to my friend - who is evidently very embarassed. She asks if I want to leave - she wants to. The waiter comes back and barks at us.
"If you don't want it, leave! I don't have time to waste with you."

This is the Hong Kong climate. I don't blame the waiter for this dishonest marketing - but I'm left with no one to pressure. The word has to get up to his boss, but workers internalize the pressure, do not communicate it to bosses. They should. I hope it would. If enough customers complain about something, this should reasonably reach upper-management. I believe this is done in Canada. Not in Hong Kong. Customers take it. This man won't communicate my dissatisfaction of being misled by the advertisement. I'll have to speak with my dollars. So we leave.

This isn't an isolated incident but the tip of the iceberg of what is institutional in the company-centric capitalist business atmosphere of Hong Kong. Hong Kong lacks people with backbone to hold companies accountable, or a Government oversight to represent the good of the people and enact standards and penalties and guidelines of good business practices. Instead ethics and good business practices are a cost - a cost that reduces the bottom-line to be avoided at all costs. And this seeps into the way businesses, all businesses, do business.

This means restaurants don't have to meet what their ad advertises.
And that a bank (like Manulife) can hang up on callers instead of answering the phone.

MPF - a good idea gone wrong

MPF is Hong Kong's attempt to institute a mandatory pension fund scheme on Hong Kongers to save money for their retirement.

But like all good ideas in Hong Kong, it fell right off the tracks leaving everybody to pay but the government and companies

The MPF is a government-sanctioned law requiring businesses to institute a scheme where workers have to save toward their retirement. Where it goes wrong is that instead of saving the money with the government, workers have to save through a bank. The result? Everybody has to have an accounting degree and civil law experience to understand the forms and contracts to sign and monthly notices of account updates and contract changes.

The forms are complicated. And the forms are different for every bank. Your employer is required to sign you up, and have pre-filled out forms for the bank they use to transfer the MPF money. If you use your own bank to keep your MPF money, you have to fill out other forms, which are not the same.

The whole thing is ridiculous. The banks are following a government sanction, all the while, I suspect, make money off the whole matter, as banks don't do just anything without a profit. And I fear the people are losing out - who has an accounting degree to monitor their account from losing money - or even keep track of their account? What's keeping people from losing their account completely? And who has the civil law background to argue in their own defense in the situation a most-certain screwup from banks? I worry.

I've had to fill out MPF forms 3 times now for 2 different jobs. Twice for the two jobs and once to transfer the money from my old job's to my new job's.

Now since I'm leaving Hong Kong, I want all the money. Simple? No.

I tried calling my MPF bank, Manulife, which fortunately is a Canadian company with headquarters in Toronto. I like to be supporting a Canadian company.

I look to the bottom of a notice I received for a phone number, and call it.

"Press 1 for English." (pressed) "Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
What is it? I don't know. I look for my "MPF Certificate" on it there's a 9-digit "account number". This must be it.
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."
(tried again.).
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please type in your 9-digit Manulife number."

I look for another number. There's my 9-digit serial number.
"I'm sorry, that number doesn't work. Please call back another time. Goodbye"

Nobody answered the phone! Ridiculous! It just hung up!

3 phone calls later of being hung up on and I'm in disbelief. I evidently don't have a 9-digit Manulife number, and their phone line isn't answering!

I look for another number in my Manulife literature. I call it. Same ridiculous phone line.

Again, the gap between idea and action, between planning and execution.

I look at my papers, I see some chinese there - it's the chinese name of my Manulife representative. There are 8-digits. Is this a phone number?

I call it.

"Hello?"
"Oh my god, are you (my Manulife representative)?"
"Yes. How can I help you?"
"You can start by fixing your stupid phone line. "
"Ha ha - really?"
"Don't laugh. How many times do I need to call? How many times do I need to be hung up on? I don't have a 9-digit Manulife number. What am I supposed to do?"
"Sorry sir."
"Don't be sorry, fix it. This is supposed to be a Canadian company, right? In Canada the lines don't hang up on you, somebody eventually answers the phone. How was I supposed to find your number? It's in Chinese!"
"Sorry sir. Now how can I help you?"
"I want to take out all the money I have with your company....."

My representative followed up on my file. Seems that the money didn't get transferred from my previous bank. "You were supposed to call us to give us the information on the form."
"I don't understand the form and I don't like MPF."
"Still you should have contacted us."
"How? Your phone line hangs up on me."
"Ah yes." I feel at this point she is worried about another angered outburst.
I offer: "I should come into your office to discuss this."

We arrange a time and after work I go to her office. She asks me on the phone to email her my requests for the account, and also my problem with the phone line so she can resolve it.

She calls me the next night to tell me she hasn't received my email. I assured her I sent it.
"To what address?"
"To (email address)"
"Ah yes, that's right...when?"
"Yesterday 5:16pm."
My accuracy in both her email address and time sent threw her off. I was proud for being able to recite this data so abruptly to her queries, but truth be known I had committed these facts to memory anticipating further problems with my account.

"Okay, well I will email you and give you the address of my office."
"Okay. Thanks."

I got home and re-sent the email, and at work the next day printed out a copy of the email. Wow, if these people, who are managing my thousands of dollars in retirement capital can't even receive emails, we're in trouble folks.

I go to her office after work the next day. I've brought my "MPF" file. We meet, we greet, we sit with her colleague. The man explains to me that since one of my forms had wrong information in it, they couldn't get transferred the money. The man asked me what information I have about my previous MPF account.
"Here." I said as I plopped down my 2 inch-thick file of MPF hell. "Go through it as you like. I can't understand it."

They gleefully went through it and concluded that since the money wasn't transferred out within 3 months, the account turned into a savings account, and thus couldn't have money transfered out. My representative's colleague was going to ask me why I didn't contact Manulife sooner, but my representative waved him off from that subject, anticipating an outburst.

Perhaps this would be easier if I had an accounting degree and experience in Civil law. Just to get my money out of MPF to go home. What did we do? To save you the already-tiring story, here it is summarized:

• We prepared the forms to transfer the money out from my old MPF account, into my Manulife one.
  
• Then we prepared the change of address/contact forms on my Manulife account to contact me in Canada (if there's problems, etc.)
  
• Then we prepared the forms for Manulife to send me my cheque of all my MPF information
• Then we prepared the forms for the Government to sign allowing Manulife to send me my cheque
• Then we went through a list of Government local offices I can visit for my next stop of my "MPF Hell Tour 2006"
• Then I went to the Government local office to have my MPF-release form signed, stamped, dated and a Government employee listen to my sworn testimony not to misrepresent myself while withdrawing money from my mandatory retirement scheme, and not to eat cats and kick dogs
• And now I am putting forms together to mail to Manulife.

Fun fun fun.

Another problem with PCCW.

So I'm leaving Hong Kong.

I've been teaching since I got here and I've been doing other things. Since last September I've been working with a community-based company in Sai Kung doing design and web development work and providing input to projects like the eNewsletter (collectively termed "Operations"), and that's been a rather effective use of my skills and time, but hasn't been sufficient enough for me to stay in Hong Kong.

I know I haven't blogging as much lately. Seems blogging kind of took the 'net by storm, and I saw many people get into it as well, but after doing a quick a check of the bloggers around me, only a few remain. Namely all those who have been blogging long before they were called blogs, but instead "journals". I think that's a more apt term to name it.

I no longer like blogging and no longer find blogs interesting. My use for my blog here was to easily communicate to friends and family without having to send out a mass email. And for those who don't know me to know me a bit better without needing the formal introductions or the get-to-know-you period of time. But I came up to a problem - what if I want to blog about friends or family? Well I think these should be things I would tell them otherwise. Should I be worried about a boss, former boss, colleague reading what I have to write? I'm not responsible for what they have to think, but I do have to work with these people. So I'll make my blog private - but then what's the use? Blogs are troublesome.

Anyway, after almost 2 years to the day, I'm leaving Hong Kong. It's been a year longer than I anticipated at first, but also a year earlier than I had changed. A good time.

During the past month I have become restless with Hong Kong and its inanities. No longer having to lower my sensitivity meter, I have become more aware of some ridiculous things in Hong Kong and have become nearly fed up. I have also become sympathetic for the Hong Kong people and the stuff they have to deal with in a ridiculous system.

I maintain that Hong Kong just misses the point on things. There is this gap that constantly exists between planning and execution, between idea and action, between - well, you get the idea.

I've been cancelling my credit cards, and had to inform my Internet Service provider, PCCW that I was changing credit cards. I filled out the on-line form informing them I was changing my billing information. Sure enough, as before, the change did not take effect. Just like before I received a text message on my cellphone informing me my service would be cut off if I don't go pay at a 7-11 ASAP. I've had this same problem before a few months ago, which I wrote about here.

So I called them.
"Please enter the 6-digits on your ID number."
Entered.
"Press 1 for billing.".
I press 1.
"Due to long waiting time, please call outside of our peak hours from 2 to 4."
(Swearing)

I call at 4:30. Same stupid message to call outside of hours 2 to 4.
I call at 5. Same stupid message to call outside hours 2 to 4.

I called and pressed a sequence of numbers to reach someone. Their line hangs up.
I called and pressed another sequence of numbers to reach someone. "Please hold for next available representative."

I put my phone on loudspeaker and place in my shirt pocket as I loiter around my local 7-11 looking for a bat to hit something with or an ice cream cone to squelch my anger. People here the familiar PCCW waiting music broadcasting from my shirt as I walk around. I am starting to whistle along.

"Ice cream please." I request at the 7-11 counter when the waiting music broadcasting from my shirt is interrupted to "Hello?". The man behind the counter looks at my chest as he holds the ice-cream out to me. "Hello." I say as I pay looking for another hand to help juggle the ice-cream, my wallet and the mysterious voice from my chest. "Hold on!" I say to my chest, anger is rising.

I am out of the 7-11 when I start on my tirade.
"What time is it?" I ask.
"Sorry?"
"What time is it?"
"5:10 sir."
"It's no longer 4pm. Why is your billing line asking me to call after 4pm if it is still not answering the phone?"
"I don't know sir. Do you need technical support?
"No. But you do. Your phone line is screwed up."
"Sorry?"
"Try calling yourself, you'll see." I realize I'm not making any sense to this guy.
"I'm sorry sir, I don't understand."

And he's not going to understand. He is on the other side of the idea planning and execution gap, the idea and action gap. He and the rest of PCCW cannot understand.

Organisations, companies, and government departments that are born-and-bred in Hong Kong cannot see themselves the way their clients or organisations see themselves. As the providers of goods and services, they can't see things as receivers of goods and services. Hence the value of overseas-born or raised talent that are the gem for organisations, that can offer value to an organisation to see things differently and communicate effective planning for execution, effective ideas for action. The Hong Kong system does not breed creativity or out-of-the-box thinking.

The man on the phone forwarded me to billing, assuring me I wouldn't have to wait on hold or be hung up on by their service.

"Hello."
"Hello. I received a text message that my service will be cut-off if I don't pay ASAP to a 7-11."
"Let me check. Sir, I see you have updated your billing information and we have charged to that credit card. No problem."
"Then why did you send me a text message that -"
"Must be a mistake sir. No problem!"
"You're going to screw this up and cut off my service, aren't you?"
"No sir. I don't know why you got that message."
"Well I'm sure I'll be talking to someone there next month. Oh yeah, about your phone line, what time is it?"

Up next: my problems with MPF (pension fund), netvigator password, bank phishing scandal and a restaurant menu display.