Friday, September 12, 2008

Useless Singapore standard chartered bank customer service

Some of the customer service staff in Standard Chartered Bank Singapore fking deserves 2 tight slap. For something as simple as getting my address and mobile updated, they simply couldnt get it right after 4 times. If these are not morons, I have no other idea what constitute a moron.

1. Firstly, I SNAIL MAIL my change of address in mid August. Using the "CHANGE of ADDRESS" form (the back of your payment slip). I mailed it the same time as DBS, and UOB.

2. I emailed to their customer service email posted on their website after a week. NO RESPONSE AT ALL.

2. I called the customer service on 28th August to query on my particulars update. It was not done. So assuming that the mail was delayed due to all the typhoon seasons, I requested the update via the customer service

Now, the customer service staff is either from china or someone who apparently could not differentiate her alphabets. First of all, she couldnt seem to understand a word I say, and she has bloody halting English. I am not sure if she is from china or what but she definitely sounds chinese and her stuttering got me worried. SO i REPEATED MY ADDRESS FOUR TIMES to her. Spelling every letter and number out for her. I had a premonition she would screw it up.

I was told i need to wait for 4 workin days.

3. After a week, I received update from DBS and UOb but nothing from standard chartered.
I called the customer service line again. This time, another guy pick up. I asked about teh change of address and read it to him. He said the address has already been updated and now it is shown as HK address. I asked about my mobile and it still was NOT updated. So i request for it to be updated. Again, I was told to wait for another 4 days.

4. This is the end of the 3rd week. Tonight I called the customer service asking why isnt my mobile updated. Hence I couldnt so any internet banking.

The girl, who is definitely a malay and could speak DECENT english asked to check my address. TO MY SHOCK and HORROR, my address was TOTALLY WRONG! Only my block number and building was correct. The district and the UNIT NUMBER was all wrong! How could that moron get "A" for apple mistaken for "E" for elephant? IS that china sounding woman stupid or what?????

Then to my next horror, this girl read my mobile number and it is STILL THE WRONG NUMBER! So what the fuck has the 2 earlier standard chartered service officers been doing? The china sounding one DREAMING and the chinese male officer busy wanking off over the phone???

My 3rd horror? This customer service girl said I had changed my address over the last 2 MONTHS. WTF??!!! I informed her that the last change was LAST JULY in 2007 not 2008. That is A YEAR AGO, not 2 months. How could standard chartered bank singapore screw up so badly?

I wanted to know who was the bitch who updated my address wrongly the first time but i was told there is no records of name. I do not believe it but really, the service is appalling!!!!! This is the first time i have such bad service from std chartered.

So no service from customer service. This last call had the staff calling to apologise profusely for the mistakes of her two other imbecile colleagues who couldnt speak a word of english. I know I shouldnt bring race in but I really am glad I got a malay officer this time whom I can at least trust to know her english and letters knowledge.

Really, if you do not speak decent english, then you really shouldnt be manning the phone. It is indeed only stupid HR that employ stupid people.

I cannot believe UOB, DBS, CITIBANK can get it right but standard chartered have such a bunch of losers doing their customer service. I really do not know where some of these people come from....

IS it really just my string of bad luck or someone else also have to spit saliva at these people who are just asking to be yelled at?

11 comments:

littlecartnoodles said...

Piang eh ... ...

Reminds me of the time when a secretary sitting near me was trying to give her email address to some hotel employee in an unknown country. It took her almost 20 mins to make sure the other person got it right, and our email addresses aren't that long, just firstname.surname@xxx.com !

Sometimes using military alphabet ("Alpha, Bravo, Charlie ...") or country names ("America, Bangkok, China ...") to spell words won't work too as the other party might just be utterly hopeless in English spelling.

Liquidfuel said...

"Sometimes using military alphabet ("Alpha, Bravo, Charlie ...") or country names ("America, Bangkok, China ...") to spell words won't work too as the other party might just be utterly hopeless in English spelling."

Er, so why work in a service helpdesk industry when you can't understand English properly?

Cheap labour? That is the very same issue many customers are experiencing.

Again, I'm not a witchhunt against FTs. Just that many of these helpdesks are outsourced to China and India.

Read my lips, I'm not on a witchhunt against FTs.

Kaffein

Nomad said...

I dont care if it is foreign talent or local, I just cannot stand companies that hire customer service who cannot speak english when the phone system gives you the OPTION to SELECT your preferred language!!! It is fine if you want to have a FT who speaks ONLY mandarin for customer who select mandarin option. But i opted for ENGLISH!!

And i agree! Spelling alphabets are usless even though ironically, it was the useless std charter woman who started it. I should know better when she didnt use countries or military terms. Which is why i used A for APPLE because i didnt trust her to know what ALPHA is!!! If she doesnt even know Apple, I do not know what else she knows....

Everyone in singapore knows that our service industry is being ruined by china people who cannot speak english. In restaurants, we witness caucasians tourist in singapore being frustrated at not being understood. I have to step in to translate. What more proof does the managing people wants that some FT are just a wrong image for the company?

It is not witchhunt about nationality, it is witchhunt about people who are sorely lacking the linguistic skills required regardless if it is local or not.

Imagine China, The country itself launched a massive learne english campaign for the service staff in preparation for BJ Olympics. This in itself is a concession about their english language ability. So why could their own govt recognise that fact, but our own country is turning a blind eye to the fact that it too will destroy our service industry if we are not strict about the requirements?

Unknown said...

"me-no-mad", I agree with you. This is not only in Std Chart but nation wide! They are cheaper to employ as compared to locals who can speak simple good English. Like many S'poreans, I've lived abroad. What I find most disappointing is that why are we speaking so much of Mandarin among local Chinese here in Singapore? What happened to our dialects??? In NZ, for example, there's a high inflax of Chinese Nationals. They don't speak Mandarin to other fellow Chinese whether they are from China, Malaysia or even Singapore. They speak English to them. Even among themselves, u can hear them speaking Cantonese. Not a word of Mandarin. I was surprised when I hear them speaking Cantonese to their co-workers and children. They are NOT from HK but mainland China!

My point is when u go to another country, u follow their ways or u go back to your own country. Yet, u still find many wants to go to those countries. Even in HK, these mainland Chinese speak Cantonese. Only a handful speaks Mandarin when they go over. But over here, WE are following THEIR way and what THEY speak. And now most of the jobs that can be handled by locals are also taken away by them. Some of these young FTs are given PRs and I start asking myself how come? Is there something wrong with our education system or employment requirements?

U know most of these Chinese FTs and even workers CAN SPEAK simple understandable English. They just REFUSED to speak so they pretended not to understand. I've encountered many in my short two weeks of part time work here after having applying for jobs since March this year. When they hear the way I speak, they quickly reply me in English and I'm a native Singapore-born Peranakan Chinese. I'm no different front any native S'pore-born Chinese. Some local Chinese feel that as Chinese we should speak Mandarin but they've forgotten that this is a multi-racial country from before and our administrative language IS English and not Mandarin for the Chinese and English for the other races. Anyway, our national language is also NOT Mandarin either. It is Malay. Also Mandarin s the administrative language in China. AT home the families still speak their own dialects. Wake up native Singaporean Chinese.

Already many of our kids are behaving like some of them,talking at the top of their voices and spitting in public places. In time, our young one will adopt their inconsiderate behaviours and don't give a damn to everything. Have u seen how the young Chinese girls dress? I'm not into fashion but lately, I see many young Chinese nationals wearing short skirts and sneakers but they will also wear a black knee length stockings!! Those are meant to be worn when a lady puts on trousers and not skirts. My, they look SO WEIRD.
Sad. I feel like I'm living in China here. Gone were the days where Singapore is a country where people dress and behaves professionally. Listen to the younger generation of Singaporeans speak English and u'll be sad to hear the way they speak. No wonder most tourists can hardly understand what they say.

I too don't understand how come most CSO (Customer Svc Officers) are non-locals? It's also hard to understand those with strong Filipino accent. Of course I don't expect to speak Singlish (that's bad too) - just simple good and clear English. But at least they are better than those who refused to speak English.

Looks like those of us who have kids, in primary schools now, may have to look for a job overseas when they grow up. Doubt most of them can find work here that can help them survive cause we've been invaded by them as they produce here.

Nomad said...

Oh lola! I so share the same sentiments and i am sure we are not the only ones!!!

Anonymous said...

Standard Chartered hasn't improved. Currently S$10,000 of my money is unreachable as they didn't follow my instructions properly to close an FD & transfer to another account.

I have been through countless customer service reps & given up on them. The surprising thing is that senior management is no better at all - it has been 3 weeks since my simple transaction should have been done & my S$10k is not in any of my accounts. Managers promise to call me & don't and every day I call they apologise & promise to get back to me & don't. The system doesn't work - internally they cannot do ANYTHING quickly due to their setup.

Anyway, have told them I will be closing my accounts after I get my money back & will also claim compensation for expenses incurred.

siva said...

Bad Experience with Standard Chartered Bank SG. Customer service.
( SCB customer service people are loan sharks not customer service professionals)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding the Personal Loan.. I approached re-payment loan.. usually I am paying monthly S$425 only..
March Month I spoke with Ms. Rahida(65081980 ).. as her suggestion I paid S$850.. and she said with this month end.. we will send the
re-payment loan details.. still not provided.. So I called after 1 week gap.. she forwarded the phone to another customer service person.
he is Mr. Nicolson Tay (65081930)... he doing worst reply.. ie., you
need to pay again S$850 then only we can provide re-payment option. So I paid again the same amount.
after the payment Nicloson telling that you have to pay another S$1600.. then only can provide detail otherwise we will take your house holding things.

he is not working like Customer Service.. behaving like "Loan shark".. and he calling from Private Number.. saying that.
If you give some commision.. I will provide better re-payment option. he always disturbing without proper reason.


!!! SCB customer service people are loan sharks not customer service professionals. !!!

Nomad said...

Siva, sorry to hear about your case!! That's pretty awful of Standard Chartered Singapore to do this to you! From your narration, they definitely sound like loan sharks to me!!! Could you transfer your loan to another bank? We moved our mortage loan to another non sg bank recently. Service was much better and rates too. Look around for your options. Sometimes even with penalty, changing banks may work out cheaper in the long run for repayment. U need to do the sums.

Anonymous said...

Standard chartered is the worst bank.I paid the bill late for 3 days only, they charged me $120 late charges and my bill was only $22. I request many times to waive it, they rejected. and customer service also useless.

Anonymous said...

SCB has good reputation for good interest rates. But please be really careful with SCB for fee and late charges waiver. I was really disappointed with the credit card services. I had 3 cards with standard chartered. All 3 had late charges incurred. When I called to waive the charges, the customer service officer mentioned that SCB has a policy of waiving only one card, per person, one time a year! Also the officer was not able to explain why ALL my cards were not eligible for fee waiver when I tried requesting for waiver over the bank helpline.
Also, their late charges are automated. So please remember to pay the SCB bills on time.
Despite telling them that I want to cancel the cards, they insisted that I pay off the late charges before I can cancel my cards.
This is really shocking as I've never experienced such services from other banks before. So just be really careful if you owned any SCB credit cards!

Anonymous said...

Jacqueline.Lum@sc.com
Team Manager, Customer Care Unit
Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited
Phone: +65 6596 1032

Fiona-PY.Lee@sc.com


can't do much though, just apologise and apologise and send out a food hamper