consumer orientation

One of the elective courses in the MBA program of De La Salle is Services Marketing. This is one of the school’s responses to the need of the service industry to upgrade its services, as there is hardly any customer orientation among local service companies. I will not touch on Philippine Airlines and PLDT here, as their pathetic customer service is legendary. Let me cite two other giant service providers that have contributed to the service industry’s bad reputation.

I lost my Internet connection on December 17 last year. I called Globe’s customer-care hot line every other day. All that the technical support people, the shift supervisors and the head of technical support could tell me was that they were having technical problems at their Alabang facility, but that their engineers were fixing the problem. When, by December 30, my Internet connection had not been restored, I decided to write the CEO of the company in the hope I would get some action from him. When I asked for his name and office address, I was told they were confidential.

Globe uses every newspaper space and TV time it can get to make known that its CEO Gerardo Ablaza got the Asian Business Leader Award in 2004. JJ Calero of another paper devoted his entire column to extolling Ablaza’s accomplishments, including those when he was in college. But to a disgruntled customer asking for the name of the CEO of Globe and where he holds office, those are confidential information.

In desperation I faxed a letter to National Telecommunications Commissioner Ruel Villa Canobas on January 7 asking him to compel Globe to provide the service due me. On January 12 a technician came. He restored my Internet connection within one hour.
On April 9 I lost my Internet connection again. My repeated request for a technician to come to my place was declined, Globe explaining that the problem was at the Globe facility in Alabang. When I asked on April 14 how much longer I had to wait for the Globe engineers to fix the problem, Jobelle Dionisio told me in a magisterial tone, “I told you our engineers are fixing the problem.”

On April 17 and 24, I wrote Commissioner Canobas again, this time asking him to suspend the license of Globe until it shall have acquired the right equipment and hired the right engineers. On April 30 I was advised by Aaron Gaw of Globe that a technician would be going to my place. I asked why when, all along, I was told that the problem was at the Globe facility. “We received a letter from the NTC,” was the answer.

I used to be serviced by Destiny. The frequent disruption of my Internet connection exasperated me. I switched to Globe thinking that with the vast resources of its parent company, Ayala Corp., Globe would have the best electronics and communication engineers and state-of-the-art equipment. Maybe the problem is not with the engineers or the equipment, but with the people dealing with customers. Ayala companies like Bank of the Philippine Islands, BPI Card Corp. and Ayala Land have never been known to be customer-oriented.

Just recently, this was demonstrated at Ayala’s Alabang Town Center. I went to the administration office to complain about the security guards. I was told that the staff was out for lunch. I came back several times after the lunch hour, and each time I was told the staff was still out. So, I parked myself in the administration office. That forced Patrick Avila to come out and attend to me. He was in his office all along. The administration office, like all the establishments in the mall, does not close for lunch.

For three months last year I was billed by Meralco a fraction of my monthly average. I called the attention of Meralco. When they adjusted the bills for those three months on the basis of their estimates, I wrote Benjamin Nolasco, AVP and head of the Alabang Branch, to contest the new charges. He wrote me back, closing his letter with the suggestion that I call the local number (725) indicated in his stationery should I need further clarification.

I called the number several times over several days, but got no answer. When I finally got through on another day, I asked for Nolasco. Larry Gabriel told me curtly that Nolasco does not answer calls to 725. In a dismissive tone, he said Nolasco signs letters as a matter of procedure but does not entertain calls regarding those letters.

Such arrogance is what services marketing intends to correct.

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“Mirror Image” is a rotating column featuring writers from the DLSU Professional Schools Inc.

Prof. Oscar P. Lagman Jr. teaches various marketing courses in the De La Salle Professional Schools Ramon del Rosario Sr. Graduate School of Business, among them services marketing and franchising.

As part of our editorial policy, this paper prefers to leave the coverage of crime stories to the tabloids. However, the carnage at the Cabuyao, Laguna, branch of one of the country’s biggest banks on Friday was such an outrage as to compel us to examine the issue of law and order—and how their breakdown affects the conduct of business.

One of the elective courses in the MBA program of De La Salle is Services Marketing. This is one of the school’s responses to the need of the service industry to upgrade its services, as there is hardly any customer orientation among local service companies.

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You might think, at first that this piece belongs to the sports section of this paper, but bear with me. There are good reasons why I’m publishing it here.