NU#9 by Anthony Parungao - What pisses me off in the neighborhood?

NU12 # 9 –  What pisses me off in the neighbourhood?

    PLDT Internet Service

by Anthony G. Parungao

SPentrep S10       

As one of the largest and major service providers in the Philippines, PLDT boasts its numerous innovations, accomplishments and success over its competitor Globe.  So how do they define or measure success?  Do they ever conduct or solicit  customer surveys?   They always claim  that they've achieved customer satisfaction but is it reliable?  Since I secured the facility services of PLDT (telephone & internet) in 2001,  PLDT's services are unsatisfactory.

While they have online payment systems and other innovative services for the customers, it is quite frustrating experiencing consistently slow internet service and even intermittent downtime of service.  Nowadays, we rely so much on the internet connections which we use for communications, research, and work related activities.  Another thing is the manner of billing the customers, we are all billed based on a flat monthly rate, unlike electricity & water, they have meters which measures the amount of actual consumption.  Why can't PLDT provide a device that can measure each subscriber/users elapsed time of usage of the internet – similar to what internet café's use to monitor each PC users?  In this manner, we are assured of the accurate amount billed based on the availability of the internet facility and actual usage per hour or a fraction of an hour.  Don't you think this manner of billing will be fair?  If Meralco and Manila/Mayilad Water is capable of measuring a commoditized product/service, there is no excuse for PLDT.

Another problem is rating PLDTs customer service level.  So how can PLDT address customer service without accurate survey data?  In statistics, there is an acceptable ratio count of survey required for x number of subscribers of PLDT (sampling).  They can easily compute this and send out online surveys with a specific timetable.  The system can generate and collate these survey, tabulate and analyze specific problems encountered by the customers so PLDT can provide if not immediate but short and long-term solutions that will enable them to improve services. 3  <same here>

Too bad the end users only have two service providers to choose from (PLDT or Globe).   PLDT has the reputation of a bad customer service and a pain in the neck.  Well at the end of the day both giants are always considered winners and we end users are always in the losing position.

By Anthony G. Parungao

SPentrep S10