Have you ever tried calling Maybank or TMnet Streamyx’s customer service hotline? If yes, then you should know how many “layers” or “numbers” (press “1″ for service A, press “2″ for service B, etc) do you have to press in order to get to the “real” customer service officer. To me, this is pure nonsense. The existence of customer service is to make customers happy but everywhere we see and hear, these customer service officers are actually making the customers more frustrated.

There are also those that say “Hello, please hold on” and make you wait forever, and those that never bother to answer. For example, on Thursday, I called ING’s hotline and it was engaged all the time. What’s the purpose of having the number when nobody can get through? In my opinion, that’s a very lousy customer service…or should I say…it’s even worse than those businesses without customer service.

Here’s my suggestion, rather than forcing the customers to go through all the “walls” in order to make them give up….maybe the businesses should remove all those “walls”, and assign the customer service officer to talk directly to the customers. Most customers just want to complain and need people to listen…and if possible, help them to fix the problem. Furthermore, having a real person behind the phone is much more sincere than using a machine.

If you cannot do something as simple as that, then don’t even try to start a customer service number. Just remove it altogether. It will save you a lot of $$ and avoid making your customers feeling even more frustrated.

p/s… I have a feeling that I’ve written something related to this before. Hahha. But…don’t care lah =_=

Few headhunters approached me the other day about a job in Cyberjaya. The benefits are quite good and they said the company can pay, and also I’ll get to travel to Europe quite often – provided I pass. I was tempted, of course. But I didn’t apply.

Why?

Because distance IS a problem, no matter how much one tries to deny. People will claim all they can about their flexibility in terms of distance and locations, but I personally feel it does play a role in Malaysia where our public transportation sux. Here are some of the factors which you need to consider before making your decision.

Cost of traveling

Does the job offer you travel allowance? Is the traffic heavy? Will you be spending more money on the fuel by traveling there than your current job? What about car maintenance? Do you think your car will need a higher maintenance cost if you were to travel that far? Is the salary increase justifiable, enough to cover the new cost of traveling?

Time

How long does it take to travel from your place to the new job location? Is it significantly longer? Do take into consideration the distance and the traffic, how long do you think you will need to spend on the road? How early do you think you need to leave home in order not to be late? And what time do you think you can arrive home after work everyday? Will you have enough time for yourselves?

Energy

Do you think you can get enough rest? Do you think you will be able to balance between work and life? Traveling further means it requires more energy. Will you end up too tired for work or other things?

Safety

If you’re tired, you have to think about the safety during your travel. Do you think you have enough energy to drive properly to and from your office? Can you drive properly at night if you work until too late?

Maybe you will say I’m thinking too much. But I seriously prefer to take into consideration all these factors before I decide whether to apply or not. It might not have too much an impact in the beginning, but it will certainly take its toll on you sooner or later.

And if you personally feel that you cannot work that far from your home based on the above factors, don’t apply. Don’t waste the interviewer’s time. However, this is depending on individual since some people have the energy to travel long journey and some don’t.

Today, I received an email from the company which hosted my blog about a promotion – get 2nd year for only RM100. It’s quite a good deal, to be honest. But I’m not going to pay for it. Why?

Because the package is not meant for me. It’s meant for advanced users who have high traffic and need a lot of memory & space. I don’t need those. I only use my hosting service for my blogs. The price is just too expensive to me.

Then I asked them about the standard package which I am using now. They replied something like this “I’m sorry that we do not offer that standard package anymore. The only standard package we have now is this RM350 for 2 years package. The first year is RM 250 and the second year, we’re giving the special discount of RM 100 but the discount ends this month”.

Notice the problem?

They discontinued the standard package without informing the customers. If I were to continue, I need to fork out much more for the new package. I used to pay only around RM 100-150 per year, including domain renewal. Now, I need to pay around RM 100-200 more each year. They are indirectly “forcing” the clients to upgrade.

Secondly, they charge an additional RM 20 upgrade fees.

First, they stopped the plan, and now they want to charge the customers for upgrading the package.

Sadly, this is not the only company I know who is using such a tactic. Such things do happen a lot to the customers. They just don’t really care about the customers when making changes. Do you think this is the right way to do business? Is this the right way to treat the customers?

Your customers are not your hostages. More and more businesses are dying off everyday and to be able to keep your customers happy might be your last hope of staying alive. If you cannot even do that and are trying to held them as hostages, do you think they will stay with you happily and let you do all you want?

No.

Businesses should only do things which the customers allow you to. In other words, if the customers give you the permission to do that, then you can. If you don’t follow this simple rule, your customers will go away – the smart customers will leave VERY soon.

Unless, the new changes bring a lot of benefits to the customers.

That’s why businesses should always plan ahead and know the consequences. By not hearing your customers (your source of income), you are indirectly killing your own business off. If you think you can survive without customers, kudos to you.

p/s…. the fact that this hosting company does not provide credit card payment (except PAYPAL, which not many Malaysians are using), doesn’t help too. It’s just so weird to have a hosting company which focuses on Internet….not to have online credit card payment method. I’m happy with the overall service so far, but I will most probably start looking around in 2009 for another hosting company.

p/s…. I recently wrote a poem for the girl who I courted for 3 years. It’s my first attempt in poetry. Check it out when you’re free The end of our chapter.

It’s pretty normal for a company to extend the job offer to you verbally (just like how it’s normal for you to verbally agree with the job offer). However, there are times when the promised offer letter gets delayed by some unforeseen circumstances (or maybe just carelessness). Here are some of the things that you can do when faced with such a situation.

Don’t resign! Not yet anyway

Never ever resign until you have the physical offer letter with you. It can be a softcopy, as long as there’s a signature at the bottom of the document. Because at that point, what separates you from that job is just your own signature. And if you don’t have this, the company can always break its verbal promise and withdraw the offer to you by giving you all sorts of excuses such as they found a better candidate or they cannot pay you, etc.

Continue to go for other interviews

As long as you have not joined the new company (or if you’re nicer, have not signed the offer letter), it is okay for you to go for other opportunities or job interviews. No harm to explore more. Who knows, maybe there’s a better job opportunity out there than the one which you have been verbally offered. And if you really get another job offer, you can always compare and see which is more suitable.

Wait

Supposedly, the new company will tell you how they will deliver the offer letter to you and by when will it be delivered. If they expect you to go and take it yourself, then they will inform you when it will be ready. Once you know the date or the time you’re supposed to wait, the other thing you can do is to …wait. Just wait for them until that particular date. Remember, being eager and interested is good, but being desperate is not. Never show your desperation of landing the job. Just give them “that” much time to prepare.

Call them

If the offer letter has not reached you even after you’ve waited for that amount of time, then you better call them up. For example, if it is supposed to be ready on Monday but it’s not, it’s better for you to call them up. You need to show you’re concerned and interested. It might help also if you tell them you have another pending offer. This is what happened to my friend who has one “physical” offer letter, and another verbally agreed offer letter. She prefers the latter so she called the company up and informed them about the truth. The new company, if they’re still interested, will explain to you about the delay and will give you another time/date for the offer letter to be ready. That should give them a slight “push” towards the right direction. But be careful with your words as not to sound too pushy.

I know it’s a bit hard to remain calm and patient when a company verbally agrees to extend a very good job offer to you….but the actual offer letter is yet to be seen. I know how it feels but there is really nothing much you can do here. Don’t ever push them too much. You need to be professional, and NOT a nuisance to the Human Resource department.

Good luck and happy hunting.

Good people will motivate themselves by reading books or articles or just by practicing things like self-assuring phrases. There are tonnes of way to motivate oneself provided the person has the will to do it.

But these things do take efforts and time.

Most of the time, when these individuals are trying their best to motivate themselves, there will be people around them who are negative-thinking people. Honestly speaking, these negative-thinking people will only make things worse by constantly bombarding them (the good people) with negative remarks or complaints about how bad life is treating them.

That’s why one of my principles in life is never to demotivate the people around me. If I can motivate them, good. If I cannot, then the only thing that I can do is NEVER to demotivate them.