Former Member of Parliament from People’s Action Party, Mr Inderjit Singh took to his Facebook page to express his disappointment at local Telco provide, SingTel’s communications for its broadband disruption.
He wrote, “I am surprised at Singtel’s disappointing poor communications on the broadband disruption. Calling the 1688 line ends up in silence. Very poor management of a crisis. Perhaps complacency which unfortunately is creeping up in many places?”
Just on Saturday (3 December), Singtel experienced an island wide disruption of its broadband services. The breakdown lasted for around 24 hours.
SingTel advised affected customers who are also SingTel postpaid mobile subscribers to use their SingTel mobile broadband in the meantime. It also added that it would waive their Singtel mobile data charges during the disruptions.
At 9.50am on Sunday (4 December), SingTel announced that its fibre broadband services have been fully restored.
It also stated that affected broadband customers who are also Singtel postpaid mobile customers will have their local mobile data charges waived for both Saturday (3 December 2016) and Sunday (4 December 2016).
At the same time, it also offers all affected customers a 10% discount on this month’s broadband subscription, which will be reflected in January bill.
However, at the moment that the article is being written, many customers are still complaining that they are still unable to access the services. Some said that they had tried to call the customer service and wrote messages, however, they still do not get any responses from the company.
Friends and followers of Mr Inderjit Singh shared their views on his comments:
Dennis Quek wrote, “Yes. I think most could be more sympathetic of their situation had they communicated it well to their customers.”
Steven Lee added, “Plus insincere compensation… in midst of all the frustrations and inconvenience!!!… Downtime for one day, waiver for one day.”
Ashok Sharma wrote, “You call it complacency. Another calls it incompetence. I agree, however that standards have fallen… Having said that, isn’t it endemic that the DNA of the Singapore government or businesses operated/significantly owned by it or Temasek never apologizes meaningfully or takes ownership of foul ups?”
Anselm Ng noted how this incident highlights the vulnerability of the local netowork, “Also highlights the vulnerability of Singapore’s communication networks. When SingTel network goes down, Majority of the country is offline.”
Wong Boon Hong notes on SingTel’s customer service standards, “It’s well known that SingTel has poor customer service. They admit this themselves and decided to change logo to remove their bad reputation. But will merely changing branding without improving on support make a difference? *facepalm*”
Wai Oon Lam shared his insights from a person based overseas, “I am based and have been working in Taipei for >14 years. Looking at Singapore from outside, I see a lot of complacencies and have met many Singaporeans including entry level job grade staffs to mid & senior management executives who are in their comfort zones getting good salary. This is observed in foreigner MNCs, government agencies and universities such as NUS. We are losing the hunger for success and getting arrogant. Singaporeans are affluent andwell-travelledd but that does not imply we have global mindsets. I’m worried for the future of Singapore and believe that’s what our PM and cabinet are concerned as well. It’s not an immediate crisis that we have to press the panic button, it’s our future that bothers me more. Are Singaporeans going to be competitive and capable of taking on the global market? The labour cost and salaries in Singapore is relatively high, we have to take on higher value jobs which are more demanding and require Top Gun professionalism.”