I believe that one vital element that continues to pull the Philippines down is poor customer service. I’ll go out on a limb and even say that only around 20% of all public and private entities know the meaning of good customer service.

Banks are number 1 in my book for sloppy customer care, especially those in charge of credit cards. A representative from Citibank called my wife reminding her of her payment. My wife said she was aware of her billing and requested the caller not to call again. The response went something like this: "If you don’t want me to call, then pay up." It was said in Tagalog. If you literally translate the statement, you’ll know how acerbic it was.

That’s in Citibank, supposedly a top bank in the country. There are other banks wherein the employees you talk to will deal with you based on their whims and caprices. If you look like an ordinary Juan de la Cruz who has a fish business, they’ll give you a hard time. If you look like a tycoon, you’ll breeze through.

I once entered a Metrobank branch and asked about opening a dollar account, since at that time I was starting to receive dollar checks from my Internet marketing. I was directed to a man behind a desk, who I presumed was the manager. I approached him and asked about the minimum deposit. He looked up at me, didn’t even bother to ask me to be seated, didn’t even shake my hand and introduce himself, and blurted out, "500 dollars; greenbucks, ha!" (as if to imply I couldn’t come up with the minimum).

I left humiliated. True, I didn’t have the minimum then. But when I did, do you think I went back? Not a chance! I went to another bank, which even turned out to have a lower minimum deposit requirement.

Two other banks that I’ve had terrible customer service experiences were LBC (perhaps "Team LBC" means LBC against the world) and Equitable PCI. A third, BPI, is infamous for making clients wait hours on end.

On the contrary, do you know what banks have good customer service? HSBC and Standard Chartered. You know why? They don’t originate in the Philippines.

Then there’s Globe Broadband. When they’re system bogs down, try calling support. They’ll first read a script that goes along the lines of "We apologize for the inconvenience" and "Rest assured we’re doing all we can to restore the system at the soonest possible time."

Ask what’s wrong and they’ll reread the script or try to do a variation of it. Press them to answer the question and they’ll admit that they don’t know. Ask when the system will be restored, they’ll again try to do a variation of the script. Press them and they’ll admit that they don’t know (see a past article: The Infuriating Globe Broadband Support). That’s customer support?

This is why you’ll find in YouTube hilarious videos on customer service Filipino style. Then we get all upset at racial slurs against us.

Duh!

Next post: What does poor customer service really reveal?