Indosat: So Many Promises, Yet So Little Action The Jakarta Globe, Saturday, February 21, 2009
When seated last year on a flight between Manado and Makassar with the regional manager for Indosat, who expounded about, and convinced me of, the many advantages in changing from my existing phone carrier — then Telkomsel Halo — to Indosat’s Matrix, I thought I would be experiencing an amazing improvement. To Indosat — and the manager’s credit, I did receive the promised "very special number," but from that point onward, it has been downhill all the way! When I moved to Jakarta on Oct. 1, 2008, I was without an Internet service provider so decided to use my Nokia E90 cellphone as a modem to access Indosat’s GPRS Internet service, which I had been assured would be "fast and very economical." I quickly learned that the connection was far from fast — or consistent (with complaints to the Indosat 111 call center on an almost daily basis) but definitely expensive, with more than Rp 1 million per month showing on my account as GPRS Internet. I inquired many times both with call center personnel and by e-mail to Indosat management in North Sulawesi (where my account was based) but no alternatives were offered to me. At an Indosat sales and inquiry center on a visit to FX [a mall in South Jakarta], I was provided with a number of "options" by a sales executive from Indosat’s head office; I clearly outlined my concerns, saying that I required a guaranteed service with respect to both connection and download speeds. I was promised that, should I take an Indosat 3G Broadband "allotment package," I would be "guaranteed a high-speed download and interruption-free connection." I agreed to take a 3-gigabyte per month package (after which additional fees would apply but without variations to connection or download speed), which would fulfill my requirements. When this package was connected to the Indosat Network (via their supplied SIM card and my modem) the speed was less than 5 kilobits per second, or kbps. After my initial inquiry at Indosat’s Sarinah Galeri, it was found that the "wrong package had been registered by the sales person." This meant considerable paperwork in returning the incorrect SIM Card — then reapplying for the 3-gigabyte package (and a new SIM Card allocation) I had ordered — with a waiting time of more than three hours — as two separate consultants were necessary to effect the change. I may add that calls and text messages to both the sales executive and consultant (whose cellphone numbers had been given to me) regarding this problem were not returned. I registered a formal complaint about this with Indosat’s head office to which I have received no response to date. In that period — now close to two months — I have spent an aggregate total of more than 17 hours, spread over some eight visits, at Indosat Galeri locations, Sarinah and their head office, in an effort to secure an adequate and reliable connection. In addition to the Galeri visits, there have been more than 20 telephone calls to Indosat’s 111 call center where the almost robotic response to each complaint is "we will check and call you within 48 hours." To date, I have received no call with respect to my Indosat 3G account complaints! I have absolutely no complaint about the attitude and follow-through by Indosat Galeri personnel who have displayed a genuine desire to be of service — even to the point of explaining their actions with respect to my complaints. Through them, I had been promised a visit by Indosat’s technical staff who would assess my location to see how they may overcome my problems of both unreliable connections and poor speed, but this has never come to fruition. I feel truly sorry for these staff members as I am aware of their frustrations in handling a huge number of complaints with virtually no back-up support from management. I have now been advised that "due to the ‘crisis,’ ?" management has ceased allowing technical staff to attend sites from which complaints have been received, to evaluate the situation and recommend a solution. It appears that here in Indonesia there are absolutely no consumer protection agencies, which of course means that companies such as Indosat are able to blatantly advertise and promote facilities and services which are clearly unattainable, in the knowledge that there can be absolutely no recourse on the part of a disgruntled client! Although I still register my complaints on a regular basis to the Indosat 111 call center, I am virtually resigned to the fact that Indosat’s senior management could not care less when it comes to customer satisfaction! Leslie H. Williams Source: THE JAKARTA GLOBE URL: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/letters/article/10600.html ___________________________________________________________________________ Dapatkan alamat Email baru Anda! 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