Teaching Ethan

Ducks at i-Cable

Aug 26, 2008 Uncategorized

i-Cable (of CableTV, Hong Kong) is full of ducks. The word “customer service” is an oxymoron for this company because they are neither customer-focused nor are they service-oriented. Everything is about them – their convenience, their products, their services, their time, their policies, their procedures, their terms…

Calling them is quite a challenge in itself. You get put through a machine phone answering system which makes you listen to a series of instructions and then directs you to press a series of numbers. Then, the machine tells you what you have entered is wrong and that you should hold for the customer service representative.

Well, I wanted to speak to a person in the first place.

And when you do get through to someone, they tell you to call another number which is “technical support.”

So, I went through the entire calling and pressing numbers and waiting process again to get another duck on the phone.

After identifying myself and describing the issue to the duck, she then proceeded to ask a series of verification questions afterwhich she asked for my name again. Hmmm…

And then, after going offline to check the connection, she returned to say, “From what I can see from here, your cable modem is on and functioning well. If you see 4 green lights on the modem, that means it is OK.”

Well, miss, if it was OK then we won’t be having this conversation, would we?

She checked again and returned with, “I got an indication that your computer is not on.”

Well, miss, if it is not ON, then I won’t know there is a problem with the connection, would I?

i-Cable gave no solutions and offered no course of action on their part. They simply reiterated the signs and symptoms of the problem, which I can see very well.

Such a situation is certainly not isolated and mostly happens with huge companies. It begs the question of how is it that they can remain in business being so self-centred?