TOT/AIS and customer service a match made in hell

[AgentSmith]

For more than a year we've been trying to get a high speed connection here. Back then we applied for a TOT fiber connection. Although they told us it would take a long time for it to become technically available in the area we still don't have it. In the mean time some houses and businesses are already connected, including the neighbors. They could hook us up any day but it's impossible to get through to their customer service department. The past few years we also experienced frequent lengthy dropouts of TOT's adsl signal because every time they seem to need a lot of time to fix it. We're offline again and last week they even closed their local customer service office in the middle of their usual opening hours, leaving nothing but a note saying "closed" on the door and no explanation or alternative contact details whatsoever. Suffice it to say they have yet to discover the true meaning of customer service.

Ok so I'm writing this fairly calm but that was a bit different not so long ago. And the story continues. We decided to drop TOT altogether and simply stop paying. For all the weeks of downtime we experienced in just a few years and now their lack of attention to paying customers we no longer even feel obliged to notify them of our cancellation. They can politely drop dead.

Anyhow, we found the perfect alternative, or at least that's what we thought: fiber to the home by AIS. Very decent speeds for low monthly fees. So we applied over the phone, gave all our details, were told to expect a technician soon, were promised to to have a connection within one week... and heard nothing back. A week later we called again, got apologies, they would look into it, thank you kindly... and heard nothing back. Yesterday we called yet again, got more sincere apologies and a firm promise they would let us know the next day... and we are still waiting for their return call. They have a few more hours but something tells me we won't hear back, ever again. So they can politely drop dead too.

This was by the way the second time we applied at AIS because we already did 2 months ago, with the same result. The recent TOT problems simply made us call them again hoping this time it would be all different. Is this how normal business is conducted in Thailand? Is it the social norm to have such utter disrespect for a customer? Any customer? And sorry for asking but could it be a falang thing? So far everyone spoke rather well English on the phone and they seemed to have proper technical knowledge about their own product so that cannot be it.

We've now decided to step off the whole idea of having any line to the house whatsoever. Instead we'll just be hooking up an aircard (usb modem) to our router. Next year 4G LTE is expected to arrive here which is very well capable of replacing physical lines. Of course it will be True because both TOT and AIS are out of the picture, at least for us.

[ThaiSanookGuy]

Next year 4G !

5555+

[Don Aleman]

Thai " customer service " ? FOOL !, there is no Thai "customer service " only the Departments of " NO" and " NO HAB" and if you are really persistent you will be referred to the Dept. of " CANNOT " !

[Bangkok Barry]

Is this how normal business is conducted in Thailand? Usually, yes. But here's something you would never find back in Farangland. I live in the countryside and there was apparently no chance of getting a phone line installed. For some reason True were also not able to provide internet service through our TrueVisions satallite. I thought satellite signals went everywhere, but what do I know? Interestingly, they did ask if we had an ATM machine near us as it seems we could hook onto its signal if we were near enough. We weren't, but now we know how the ATMs operate. So, I used a USB cable to link an old Nokia phone to my laptop and an AIS SIM card. Fine for about 5-7 days, but then they cut the speed by 95 percent as I'd reached the limit of my unlimited service and was reverted from 3G speed to dial-up speed circa 1999.

About three weeks ago, however, spouse received a call from an old school friend who lives nearby and is a teacher at a local school. The school and a temple and a police outpost were going to put pressure on CAT to join us to the 21st Century and for 2,500 we could get priority service and 15mps. We said yes please, and two days later it was installed. And here's the thing - they finished the job at 11.40 on a Sunday night. Can you imagine getting that service in Farangland? We provided beer and potato crisps. It took longer than they thought because there was a problem. In Thailand there is always a problem, but at least they solved it.

Today a man showed up with the paperwork, and we pay 690 plus VAT a month. And it works fantastically well.

[Shaunduhpostman]

We have similar problems. TOT either goes totally down from 3-10 days before it is fixed or we will have a 3-10 day period where most web pages only get as far as initial stages as far as loading and of those that load, only pages with minimal graphics such as web forums with little to no advertising, take 15-20 minutes.

Like you, we have called another provider and it's the same story as yours, a follow up is promised about getting an installation etc. and nothing ever comes of it. Interestingly we were trying to get 3BB to help us not AIS. I wouldn't take the apparent lack of interest in your custom personally, it's just how things are here. AIS probably figure they have enough clients. No need to try and expand capacity that would cost money. In Thai culture it is also not very becoming to refuse, so they may well know they can't provide us with service, but it is just down to their not wanting to look bad to themselves saying that they are maxed out. Flakiness is the order of the day and that's how the Thais like it. Sounds like you have been by passed for service by AIS probably due to your application being on the bottom of the pile. That will teach you to apply before everyone else does!

One suggestion for coping with TOT is that it is a bit easier if you get a repairman to sympathize with your plight. We've had a few guys who seem to take pride and interest in the network's functioning. We found that we were not getting problems solved promptly because the customer service people in our area were not relaying complaints to the repairmen and were simply b.s.ing us and stringing us along with various stories when in fact nothing was being done and apparently no one was getting the message about network problems. At one point, internet pages were not loading for over a week, and we called many times as well as another woman in our village who was and still is equally frustrated. They finally told us, "We cannot fix the problem." I reminded them that we were paying them for this service which seemed to come as a surprise to them, and they gave me the number of some high level manager who said in a highly disinterested tone of voice that he was in a meeting presently. I mentioned that I would happily call back when he was available and he said "OK, never mind, what seems the to be the problem?" He said he would come to our house personally the next day and see. I told him there was no need that our end of the internet according to my diagnostics program was fine there was a problem on their end. This seems also to be cultural as well, they are a big organization who has more status, so therefor nothing can be wrong on their end, it has to be a problem with us. This is usually how the conversation goes with customer service, neither myself or my Thai wife are able to impress upon them that our compputer has a good diagnostics program and it indicates our end is fine. They can't seem to grasp that and insist on sending people all the way out to our place. Anyway I said to the manager that he was welcome to come out personally and see what the problem was and he said he would around 11 am the next day, but he never showed. Three weeks later the connection was fixed and it was blindingly fast for a week before going back to a much slower but acceptable speed.

Typically after a week of daily calls nagging the customer service people a repairman would arrive and say he'd not gotten any word of any problems from supervisors till the day he came out. Several repairmen have volunteered to give us their personal phone numbers so that we can call them directly about any problems and that has cut times it takes to get things straightened out. Only probelm is that these guys either quit or get promoted and are quickly no longer able to help. So, if you have to stick with TOT, that route seems to be better, don't bother with the official channels, they have probably bought and paid for their job positions at TOT so they probably don't feel particularly obligated to anyone.

To be fair, most recently, we've had a month of good connection with only a few days where the connction became unusable. So, for us anyway, our only option in our area is TOT's inconsistent service with unconcerned people at the office standing in the way of fixing what may in fact be simple problems. We need to get a new reapirman on our side however as the last guy, despite no longer being a repairman, was still at TOT and was a great guy and went out of his way to call people and get things sorted outside of his regular job duties. But he really was doing us a big favor. I would also get others in your neighborhood to call and nag. Everyone in our area has the same problems, and we discuss what is going on, what TOT is bsing us with this time etc.

[KhunBENQ]

How lucky I am.

ToT customer for three years now. Total downtime/unusably slow about 4 times, a couple of hours each time.

Did three hotline calls and problem fixed within max. 5 hours or so.

Should I mention that I live in upcountry, not in one of the congested cities/tourist centers?

Edited December 28, 2014 by KhunBENQ

[KhunBENQ]

Forgot to mention: one day a truck teared down all the communication cables to the village.

Longer than one day outage.

But I don't blame it to ToT.

Thats a broken internet literally (Feb 2014):

Edited December 28, 2014 by KhunBENQ

[Jimbolai]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Next year 4G !

5555+

I see this 5555 often. What does it mean.

[stoli]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

Next year 4G !

5555+

I see this 5555 often. What does it mean.

The number 5 in Thai is pronounced "ha". So, 5555 is ha, ha, ha, ha. It is our equivalent of LOL. It is a laugh.

[KhunBENQ]

digit 5 in Thai language sounds like "ha".

5555 = ha ha ha ha

Edited December 28, 2014 by KhunBENQ

[Travel Dude]

For years I had AIS 3G. At least that's what I was paying for. Appeared that 3G was not yet given by AIS. As long as companies can cheat all of there customers like that without any implication, there are no hopes of better services for consumers.

[MrY]

What to expect in a country where Service Counters are frequently labelled 'Counter Service'..?

[Nuddy]

Its hard to find the real problem with your internet even if you speak Thai.

Its likely the workers or the decks just don't know why it has a problem.

[realenglish1]

In reality Thai customer care is geared towards the least level of resistance Not consumer satisfaction.

They believe is someone stops complaining then it must be OK . They do not understand that someone may be so demoralized with their service they just don't want to hear it anymore and move on.

I have been here 15 years and in reality Customer care sucks here in Thailand Its that simple .

They do not understand customer satisfaction. This is because of lack of competition here and closed markets. Until they open up it will always be this way

No competition no reason to improve customer care. They think. Where is the customer going to go ?

[jamiesilver]

TRUE are the worst company i've ever dealt with!

we have about 12 contract phones

4 internet subscriptions

obviously we are a high paying customer, but get treated like crap.
Just trying to get a bill every month in the right name took them 2 years. then when they finally got it right. 3 months later they got it wrong again!

[AgentSmith]

Hmm so they haven't heard of customer satisfaction. And Thai culture about ignoring problems to not lose face is ever present even in large companies. I kind of knew this already. It's just that the way they addressed us on the phone was very reassuring. Their employees spoke very good English and they asked the right questions. Why go through so much trouble just to avoid saying they cannot deliver?

It's probably indeed a matter of being underneath a large stack of applications. We know for a fact this is the case with our TOT fiber application. The funny thing is that the fiber cable has been laying right up to the house for more than a year. It's just a matter of connecting to the main line. We even applied before the main line passed through the main street here. Fair enough, back then they told us candidly it was going to take a long time which was OK with us. After all we had a working 10 Mbps ADSL line... But after waiting more than a year and with all that downtime we kind of gave up.

Guess we have no other choice than to adapt our falang patience to the next level. I mean, it is not right to expect them to change their culture just so we can be happier falang.

Edited January 5, 2015 by AgentSmith

[Keesters]

I too have similar stories of idiocy from the communications companies.

TRUE: Renewed my passport. Notified them of new number. Internet billing online login everything went down. After a lot of phone calls I'm blamed for renewing my passport. Took them a few days before they got it all 100% again.

TT&T land line: Circa 2000. Friends complained they couldn't call me but the phone worked. Used it to call my new mobile, different number showed up on caller ID. Informed TT&T that they had changed my land line number and they blamed me for doing it. They took a few days to return me to my rightful number.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Keesters

[siam2007]

Thai " customer service " ? FOOL !, there is no Thai "customer service " only the Departments of " NO" and " NO HAB" and if you are really persistent you will be referred to the Dept. of " CANNOT " !

what a giant load of rubbish

while not in all cases my request could be solved 100% in the way I would have wanted it (sometimes to due my own fault), I have always received proper service and been treated with respect when visiting customer service places here. But maybe I have to mention I treated my counterparts with appropriate respect either plus appearing in a suitable outfit

[AgentSmith]

What do you mean by suitable outfit? Sure the latest 'fashionable' speedos won't do but you're not talking about a suit and tie I hope? We're customers for crying out loud! Appearance should not matter at all.

[AgentSmith]

A small miracle has happened. After hearing nothing for quite some time all of a sudden AIS installed the fiber connection. It seems miracles do happen from time to time.

[RichCor]

It's a trick to lure you into a false sense of hope and optimism.

Or, maybe they're playing the long-game and will give you excellent service and then, bam! Don't know what the bam might be, though when it comes I'm usually not surprised.

[AgentSmith]

We'll see. It can't be worse than TOT ADSL and its over 25% downtime.

[AgentSmith]

So far we had zero downtime. And the speed is at maximum throughout the day. If it's a trick then it's a pretty good one.

[AgentSmith]

The AIS story continues for the good. For the past few days all of a sudden we had errors in the fiber connection. The connection kept being interrupted until the modem simply showed a connection error. We called the customer service at 1185 and after explaining the situation they sent a mechanic. This man arrived a few hours later and replaced the modem after which the line worked again. He gave us his personal phone number and told us to call him if the problem came back because he wasn't sure that simply replacing the modem would fix this. This was my first wow moment.

Sadly the line stopped working again around 1 AM. The next morning we called the mechanic and within a few hours he showed up to do some more tests. Soon after the fiber signal was up again but we had no internet. Since we use our own router with the modem in bridge mode, by no means a standard setup and usually beyond an ISP's service level, he was wondering if the problem was internal. The router could not make the connection despite a working fiber signal. However I noticed this before that night because once in a while the fiber signal came back up but the router never reconnected. The mechanic still determined to find a solution then said it is probably either the other end of the fiber line or the fiber line itself. This man was actively looking for a solution, wow moment number 2.

Last night the signal went down again and nothing seemed to have changed. An hour ago the mechanic swapped the modem back for the original one as he ruled out a modem problem. Then he left saying he was going to check the other end. The signal came back up and he returned to say he had rebuilt or re-soldered the fiber connector. Wow moment number 3.

Hopefully the connection stays up now but no matter what happens I am fully confident that if the problem is still there this man will find it. I am truly impressed by the level of service as well as skill and knowledge and efficiency. Communication in English is also unprecedented.

[Crossy]

@AS I hope you gave him a small tip for his good service, it's always wise to keep the service chaps sweet.

Our pet TOT man and his assistant have been exemplary over the couple of years we've been on TOT (firstly WiNet now FTTx). Always same day, always fixed including two fried WiNet routers (lightning). It was the service chap who informed us that fibre was available (the resort next door had paid $$$$$ to get it, we got it for the normal connection charge).

Wifey gives them food if it's about lunch time and a little something for their trouble

[NoshowJones]

Your problems are another reason why Thailand will always be a third world country. The customer doesn't matter. More low Thai mentality.

I have to say though, any small businesses I have seen or dealt with, ie computers, car or motorbike repairs, building work around my house, apart from the very odd occcasion, I have always had good service.

[Keesters]

I have True ADSL. It was installed quickly and efficiently a few years ago. Just recently I noticed that with docsis system I could have some TV channels, and a land line telephone. True said they would give it to me at same price I was currently paying. Fine, where do I sign. After paperwork done they said not more than 7 days. 2 days later got SMS saying they would come next day. Waited at home, nobody showed. Waited next day, nobody showed. Screw them I thought. I've wasted half my time in Thailand (30 years) sitting around waiting for some Thai to do something or other. I'm not going to waste any more. They showed up 3 weeks later. I refused to let them in the gate. I don't want it anymore I told them. You're over two weeks late in coming here. The guys sat in their truck outside my gate for an hour not knowing what to do. Then they drove off.

In the period between the time they should have come and actually showing up I had visited a friend who happened to have had it installed the previous week. He was most disappointed. Bad TV picture, slow internet, bad telephone connection. Glad I saw him and was able to stop from going the same way. So True actually did me a favor in showing up late. There's a first time for everything. And for once I won and Thailand lost.

Good Service...Thailand. Can't be used in the same sentence generally. There are some exceptions. The girls at the end of the 1678 phone to DTAC. Kasikorn Bank phone service. But mostly Thai businesses wouldn't know good service if it came and bit them on the ass.