Improving the customer experience of tech companies the Philippines

My wife and I are going through one of the most harrowing experiences in Manila -- getting a DSL internet connection. As I write this, my wife just finished queueing up for more than one hour at the PLDT office in Megamall.

She was 10th in line when she started. There were only two people serving the long line and since each customer took an average of 20 minutes to process, I estimated she would be served only after 3.33 hours. Had it not been for some customers abandoning the queue, she would have waited this long.

The irony of this is that we chose a more expensive DSL plan (Plan 1299). Had we chosen the lowest plan (Plan 990), we wouldn't have had to wait in line. PLDT required us to pay before they installed our line. In contrast, if we chose Plan 990, PLDT would have installed the line without requiring us to pay first. It does not make sense.

For a difference of P 300.00, we were required to wait in line. Did meeting face-to-face with the customer representative add value to the experience? Nope. They didn't ask my wife any questions (everything was already captured in the application form); nor did they give any new information, not even what to expect next.

It would have been easier if PLDT required no initial payments at all and just billed us after the first month -- the same way as Plan 990. Clearly, the people who designed the process did not talk to each other. In effect they are punishing customers needlessly.

I was texting with Malou, the service agent who was handling our application. I told her, could we just change our plan to 990? Her reply was not helpful. She said that they would have to "deactivate" my plan 1299 (I thought it wasn't activated yet?) and apply for plan 990 separately, which would take up more time.

Her message was framed in such a way as to put the fault on me for being fickle in choosing a plan. I couldn't help but compare how someone from Australia would have handled this. An Australian tech service provider would have said, "Not a problem." And went on fixing it right there. And this would have taken much faster to process, compared to the two weeks waiting time giver or take 3-5 days promised by PLDT.

I would like to ask the owners, managers and employees of PLDT if they themselves are willing to put up with this kind of service quality. Many of us Pinoys think we can compete in the global tech services market. But unless our tech service providers put the customers back at the center of their processes, we will never quite make it there.

Blenz Cafe Experience

I'm at Blenz Cafe, second floor of SM Megamall. This cafe is thoughtfully designed to encourage nomadic (aka "mobile") workers and entrepreneurs. Since it's in Megamall, wifi is free. But Blenz also offers its own free wifi service, whose password is printed on the receipt.

Blenz has plenty of electric outlets located near the tables, so no jostling for tables like in Starbucks. The sockets are also universal -- they can accept any type of plugs. Lighting and music is subdued, for a relaxed atmosphere that's great for non-sensitive meetings. The coffee and tea here is also good.

The design of the cafe itself makes things more efficient. Since the wifi password is printed on the receipt, the cashier simply encircles it. No need to spell it out and make mistakes. The electric outlets are obvious. You don't have to hunt for them (and cause traffic) and no need to ask the staff. There's nothing else to do in terms of customer experience when the basic structure itself already works.

Try it out, next time you wish to meet with clients, or just need to check email and you're running out of battery charge.

Humanizing Technology

When we were planning our wedding, my wife and I agreed that we had seen too many ceremonies ruined by technological attempts to immortalize the memory. We also wanted our wedding to be intimate and fun.

So we specifically instructed the photographers and videographers to stay out of the way. We didn't want them obstructing the view of the guests. We didn't want their assistants moving around too much, carrying blind-inducing lights.


We wanted our wedding to be experienced firsthand, remembered in human memories and not through images frozen on magnetized discs. That way, the guests experience would be truly unique.

Why am I rambling about our wedding? Today, I was browsing in a second-hand bookstore and discovered Turn Signals Are The Facial Expressions Of Automobiles by Donald Norman, he who also wrote The Design of Everyday Things which I think is one of the most inspiring books on design. The first chapter ("I Go to a Sixth Grade Play") got me all excited. Here's a quote:

"Ah yes, once upon a time there was an age in which people went to enjoy themselves, unencumbered by technology, with the memory of the event retained within their own heads. Today we use our artifacts to record the event, and the act of recording then becomes the event."

Spot on!

How many times have we fidgeted through the controls of our recording gadgets while that once-in-a-lifetime event passed us by? Is stupidly designed technology interrupting our ability to experience an event in more human form?

Here's more of Chapter One:

"Probably we've all seen a wedding reception, an event meant to be full of spontaneous expressions of joy, transformed by the photographer into a series of staged events. 'Kiss the bride.' 'Again, please.' 'Cut a piece of the wedding cake.' 'Would the bride feed the groom?' 'Move out of the way of the camera.' It is amazing how tolerant we have become of this manipulation of experience. The act of recording taking precedence over the event."

The setback, of course, is that having been trained videographers ourselves, we sometimes ask why we didn't have a clip of this scene during the wedding. But then we remember the basic principles we wanted to follow. It is the memory in our minds that is more important.

Process Management to Assist Government of Bohol

The Government of Bohol is intent on improving its services and it has sought the help of many experts in various fields. I'm helping them through process management: customer focus, process focus and continuous quality/process improvement (which involves process redesign). Let me jot down what I've been working with them in terms of process design.

My part on this is just a small one. There is a larger project that aims to reorganize the whole provincial government. It requires change management and reengineering. I was asked to help the change team to understand process management as one guide post for the reorganization.

The intervention chosen for me was through a series of workshops and consultations. My training partners asked me to give a 3-day workshop for the office heads, and a 1-day overview workshop for their key staff. The goal of the workshops was to let them become more process-oriented and to let them experience how to map, analyze and improve core business processes.

We connected their personal experiences on customer service to their own workplace. We taught them the value of customer delight. They learned about business pain and how it hints at the urgency to improve processes. When we concluded the workshop, we gave them assignment to continue mapping their core processes and suggesting how to improve them. It was tedious but fruitful as they started seeing their function from a process-oriented perspective.

Many of the sharp ones already started having insights on how to improve their office systems.

My next session came after two weeks. I flew in for three days of consultation. They gave me a table in the change management team's room at the Provincial Capitol. Office heads and staff came and showed their homework to me. A fraction of them obviously did not listen or did not care to listen in the workshops, since they submitted shoddy work. But many of them came up with nice, neat process maps. The sharp ones submitted excellent improvement proposals. You could really see that process thinking helped them gain deeper insights into management.

Today is the last day of the consultations. I am sitting at Brewpoint, which is the cafe of my impressive but inexpensive hotel (Soledad Suites). Tomorrow I'll go sight-seeing -- visiting the Chocolate Hills for the first time and am bent on meeting a tarsier too. I'll be missing this place but I'll plan to come back. Next time, I'll bring my wife and go to Balicasag to watch dolphins and whales.