Communications Starhub - change your SOP

Let me start by saying that the service provided by the call center and technical staff of Starhub is good.

However their operating process is terrible. I hope that the new CEO can get someone to contact me.

I called Starhub 1633 yesterday because the internet is very slow.

It was painful to get through to the call center. I have to hear all kinds of irrelevant messages and promotions. They do not apply to me. I just needed to talk to a technical person.

After wasting a lot of time listening to the irrelevant messages, I have to enter my 7 digit NRIC (which was no problem) and to authenticate it with my date of birth in DDMMYY format. I got the date of birth wrong and by my mistake, I was thrown out of the automated conversation.

Why is it necessary for me to enter my NRIC and my date of birth for authentication? I am not asking to make any transaction. I am only reporting a problem.

I called again, and after wasting a lot of time, I manage to speak to someone. They arranged for a technical staff to call me back a hour later.

The technical staff assumed that my devices were not working. I had to turn off the modem and three routers for a few minutes and restart them again. My devices are located on three floors.

Why do they assume that my devices were not working? Could they check if there was some problem with their network? Is the traffic slow due to the rain or some faulty device in their network?

After going through the resetting, my internet speed is still slow, less than 10 Mbps. Fortunately, I have by now learned about the speed test to have a sensible conversation with the technical person.

The technical person said that he would send someone to my house the following morning. Another staff would call me to confirm the appointment.

The follow up staff called me at 9.30 am. At that time, the internet speed was very fast 40 Mbps. I did nothing with my router and devices since last night.

I had suspected that the slow speed was due to the Starhub network and not to my devices. After all, the speed was quite fast all along. The devices did not fail.

Here are some suggestions for the new CEO:

a) Change your call center automation. There is no need to give irrelevant messages and advertisements to the customers. Let the customer get to the relevant staff quickly.

b) Do not ask the customer to enter the NRIC and the authentication. Most times, it is not needed. If it is needed, your technical staff can ask for them. They did anyway ask for my address and account information.

c) If there are internet speed issues, have a simple way to identify if the problem is with the Starhub network. Do not assume that it is caused by the devices of the customer. If Starhub is able to confirm that the speed to the location is good, then you can assume that the problem is with the internal devices.

Why am I asking the new CEO to look into this matter? I have raised this kind of feedback to Starhub over the past 10 years. They still keep to their unnecessary and troublesome process.

I end this feedback with the same remark that I made at the start. The customer service and technical staff of Starhub are helpful and patient. It is the SOP (standard operating procedure) that need to be changed.




 

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