Lamenting the severe decline in customer services here in the Philippines

Have you noticed this trend? Have you tried making a request through the official channel of a bank or other agencies – only to find that it would take days, weeks or even (never!) longer just to get something done?

Most of the government agencies have their websites up and running – but many times, it would take weeks before you get a response.  Frequently you would get a 404 error on their websites or their server would always be down.

Even the Open University of the most prominent State University (UP) is not exempt.  They claim they have 2000 students worldwide – and yet, by the admission of the officer that we talked with, she has a backlog of 200 emails yet to read from the open university students.  These students rely soley on the internet, on the efficiency of the technology being used. I know someone who enrolled 2 classes this summer at UPOU – and paid more than P10K – and yet was not given the enrolment activation keys on time!  She could not access the UPOU portal to get information from anyone.  All her emails were bouncing back to her.

More than 2 weeks had passed before she got an activation key from one of the 2 classes, and by that time, she was already way far behind the requirement.  And NO ONE would just acknowledge that something went wrong! 

NO ONE. 

UPOU would not even refund the P10K she paid on time. That is not a university policy. In their book, she has enrolled – but it should not have stopped there. She could not access the portals. There was no one to check on the students if the activation keys were emailed, received and confirmed to be functional.  No apologies at least by the officers to this student. It was not her problem in the first place, to make sure that the integrity of their portals are 100%.

Yesterday, in my effort to get some of these issues clarified, I asked the officer for a copy of the reports. She said ‘I could not access the database since yesterday because our system is still down…’ This is coming from UPOU which boasts of 14 years of experience in handling open university requirements.

OPEN UNIVERSITY would mean everything is accessible for the students 24/7 from anywhere in the world.  It is just really sad when its own administration could not access its database located within its own perimeters.

And sadly, there is no other way to call this but inefficiency of their technology, portals etc.  If you could not get through the portal when you are supposed to ( and paid for) there is hardly any word for it.  When the server is down for more than 2 weeks and the emails are bouncing back to you – you do not call that just mere technical problems, that is called inefficiency.

I sms my brother and told him some of these dilemma.  I said UP is  still UP. It is supposed to be the premier university even in online studies. This is not some run- of- the- mill universities and should get its act together.

2. BPI EXPRESSONLINE – This used to be a very top notch service by the Number 2 bank here in the country.  They have always won awards for their impeccable service.  Due to the summer camps and being away for these camps, I had not been able to renew my password after 181 days.  So after the camps, I tried logging in, only to find out that my password had expired. I called their 89-100 number and went through the typical, long winded narration of their menu and services and products.  Once I got to talk to a phone banking officer – I was told that there were no internet officers available.  They are the only ones who could reset a password. No internet officers available – yet the service they offered is called expressonline.

Two days later, I called again – the same excuse was given to me and this time they asked me about certain discrepancies on my 2 accounts.  One was SAVINGS and the other was a CHECKING account. So I cleared that up – only to be told that all the internet phone bankers were busy at the moment…

Well the other day I called again (my 5th), and I mentioned the 3rd reference number given to me. After 10 minutes of waiting on my mobile phone – I was finally  able to talk to a phone banker who reset the password for me.  Five calls, 3 reference numbers, more than 40 minutes of combined mobile calls and I was able to finally have my internet password reset.

3. CREDIT CARD SIGN ON – this has been going on for more than 3 weeks now. I could not log in to my account.  Called day and night – more than 7x now – and while the phone banking officers were polite, they still could not help me.  I need for them to be more efficient than polite.  Because politeness still does not let me open and see my statement of account.  It would not let me log on and I tried all possible ways they said so I could have the password reset.  Nothing works.

I called this offshore bank again last night – and aired my concerns. I was told that I could do a Quick Inquiry instead. I said I know that, but I need to see all my transactions and the dates for each… she promised me that all of these things would be resolved.  She was very polite – but I wish they were more efficient than polite.  Or, express their polite-ness BY BEING efficient.

One thing though remains very efficient.  That is, the collection of fees and the appropriate charges.

When you pay your fees at UPOU – you could even do it through your credit card OR have it done in less than 5 minutes at the cashier on the 2nd floor.

When you have less than the ADB  required (Available Daily Balance), BPI automatically deducts P200 from your account.

The credit card by an offshore company is the same.  When the amount due is not paid in full, they appropriately levy 3.25% on the amount and then the corresponding late fees or other banking fees.

Business as usual. 

But customer service is going down the drain.