Customer Service in The Philippines
I have been amazed a couple of times by Globe, the provider of my internet connection. Last weekend was one of those times. Our internet connection died last Saturday night. Jessie called Globe, sometimes they just need to reboot the modem from their office. They couldn’t reach our modem so they said they would send out a technician. Just like last time, they showed up on a Sunday.
Vegitable Market in The Philippines
The tech brought another modem but when he connected it, the new modem didn’t work either. So he went to work on the lines. After about an hour the tech called and asked if the connection was back up, and it was.
That’s the positive, its not all so positive, our connection gets slow or not working at all way too often. Most of the time its fast but we had a couple of months where it was nearly impossible to do any work on the web. I’m glad that time is over.
Geek Speak
There is also a spammer on the network. He’s used websites that inflict a script onto those that visit his site. Those sites then give the user a “virus” known as a zombie. These zombies take over part of the users network to send out spam. They can also use these zombies to launch a distributed denial of service attack or DDOS. You may have heard of the problems Twitter and Facebook have had in recent weeks. Basically they flood a website with traffic so that the resources are overwhelmed. Then pages are slow to load and databases end up with too many connections open and cannot open more. These kinds of attacks are very hard to over come but they can be over come over time. This spammer has caused my IPs to be blacklisted by some organizations. Some webmasters use these list to block users with those IP addresses.
I hope Globe is able to get this resolve but its not an easy task. Still, other ISP’s are able to do so there must be away. I think this was related to some of the extremely slow websites I experienced for some time.
Restaurants In The Philippines
Its also a good time to talk about service in your average restaurant in the Philippines. You might have to ask for a menu! Usually not but sometimes you do. In the USA, after your meal is brought out the waiter usually comes back a few minutes later to see if everything is okay. I’ve never had that happen in the Philippines. I think, in the Philippines, they feel like they may be disturbing you. I have noticed in some of the better places that the staff will watch your reaction, checking to make sure all is okay. They wont bring your check/bill to you at the end of a meal. You’ll need to go to the counter pay in most cases. In the USA sometimes they bring the bill out before you ask for it, I always feel like they are trying to run me off so they can get the next customer in. I dislike that a great deal. I don’t think you’ll ever see that happen in the Philippines. Perhaps if you are being a jerk they might.
Like always, the good and the bad, its up to the visitor to realize its not their country. Its not their culture and cultures develop differently. It doesn’t make one better than the other. Its about what people in that area have become comfortable with.
Let me hear about your experiences with service in the Philippines. Don’t believe the people that are always negative. There can always be something to complain about if one is so inclined. Its taken me a while to understand, happiness is mostly related to how I see things.
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Rusty. I really don’t have many issues dealing with service in the Philippines and anything that does present a challenge I let my wife handle. .
I have issues as you do with Internet being way to slow for the times but I face the reality that there is nothing I can do about it and griping is only going to piss me off more. It is still slow and that is life here
If the air con goes on the fritz she has friends that will come over usually in a day and take it out and do a complete overhaul on it and then it works fine again until next time.
If my motorscooter doesn’t work for some reason we text the mechanic and he comes over sometime during the day and takes care of it.
When I want the bill in a restaurant I simply loot for a server and then make what looks like a letter C with two finger on one of my hands and they bring it to me.
In general I don’t find fault with service here. I find people are quite attentive.
The probelm I have here are with noise and a more importantly the general complacency and I don’t care attitude about everything as if he people don’t really care about anything enough to make a fuss over it. Even their own countries well being.
Hey Richard, the article wasn’t about finding fault with service here. It was about the improved service. I did feel the need to talk about the down side though. Attentive is the key word, I agree but they don’t do the same kind of things one expects to get while in the USA.
Hi Rusty – Interesting article. Particularly the restaurant part. I also have experienced having to ask for a menu. Also, you might go in with a party of 4 or 5 people and they will bring one menu for everybody to share! I hate that!
On the bill… I don’t recall ever having to get up and go pay at the counter. Usually, in the cases I’ve experienced, you have to get the attention of the waiter and then use your fingers to form a square, like you are outlining a bill. Then they bring it to you. Might be different up in your neck of the woods, though.
I’ve seen Jessie to thee square thing often. I usually leave it to her to handle those things to reduce the chance of miscommunication.
At some smaller joints, its almost a street vendor, like at the BBQ by the Bay. There its get up and go pay. I’ve never seen a receipt there.
Hi Rusty,
Magandang gabi kaibigan! Good article! I have had the pleasure of experiencing great customer service from Pilipinos. Their culture really is built on service and it shows. They are a caring and attentive nation, albeit a bit compacent at times…but who isn’t. I use the square in the air signal to get my meal check and have never had a problem with miscommunications yet. Thanks for another interesting topic! Ingatz!
Hi Doni,
Yes the miscommunication is more likely to come when ordering which can turn out badly. LOL
Hi Rusty. I have had some terrible experiences in restraunts. To begin with I didn’t know how much you get for how much money. I ordered about $12. worth of chinese food & it could have fed a crowd of 8. I was so imbarrased. My fault as usual. I never did figure out if I should pay the waiter, or go up to the cash register. I remember the waitresses laughing at a little guy like me ordering all this food. I think they all ate well as I never touched modt of the food & I was stuffed. Funny now though !
LOL Guy, I fed eight people on about $8.00
When I was moving to Bogo we stopped at, I think, Catmon and ate at a roadside fish house. The catch of the day was arriving as we got there. The place had the highway in the front and the Visayan Sea in the rear. Was good stuff too.
Philippine Service
Philippine Hell
A man dies and goes to hell. There he finds that there is a different hell for each country.
He goes to the German hell and asks, “What do they do here?” He told, “First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the German devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day.”
The man does not like the sound of that at all, so he moves on. He checks out the USA hell as well as the Russian hell and many more. He discovers that they are all more or less the same as the German hell.
Then he comes to the Philippine hell and finds that there is a long line of people waiting to get in. Amazed, he asks, “What do they do here?”
He is told, “First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they lay you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the Filipino devil comes in and whips you for the rest of the day.”
“But that is exactly the same as all the other hells – why are there so many people waiting to get in?”
“Because maintenance is so bad that the electric chair does not work, someone has stolen all the nails from the bed, and the devil is a former government servant, so he comes in, signs the register and then goes to the canteen!!!
Now I understand why many Filipinos don’t worry so much about going to hell
Every time we ate at the Bay BBQ, it never mattered how long we would just hang out after dinner smoking those cigars, that check just would never come. But it never bothered me, becaues I can’t really tink of a better place to hang out waiting for a check that never comes
I always let my Filipino entourage do all that is required to communicate with the wait staff in restaurants, although of course I know that when I return to stay in the PI for a much longer period of time I will have plenty of opportunities to experience the general confusion and chaos myself. I’m looking forward to it too, because I really need more stuff to talk about on my blog..
As for internet service. I noticed that it not only takes forever to upload photos to blog and facebook using free wifi at hotspots, but it also took forever using a dedicated Globe broadband connection at my girl’s house in Davao. This was a fresh new cable internet connection that was rated at 1MB/sec down and had been spiking at 1.2MB/sec. Of course the up speed is considerably lower than the down speed, but this was ridiculous. To upload 5 pics at about 2MB each to blogspot, it would take 10-15 minutes. The average was around 12 minutes to get 5 photos up. Since I was uploading to USA google servers, I’m guessing that maybe it was more of an issue with all the extra hops to get from Davao to wherever the blogger servers are. When I got back home to southwestern Pennsylvania, I uploaded 5 pics of 2MB each to my blog and they went up in about a minute. This is on a crappy old basic Verizon DSL home connection which tops out at 300KB/sec down and about 80KB/sec up. I am wondering if that Globe connection in Davao, being a cable internet connection (which is a shared connection by nature), is being stretched too far. Or is it just a problem of there being too many hops? Maybe I’ll never know.
hmmp.. You are absolutely right my dear. Globe broadband really hit my head always. As I know it’s really a shared connection since they need to look first where they can facilitate to connect its connection. I do regret why i change my connection from smart to globe, unlike with smart that they will set up an adopter for your own use only.
Truth is, all internet connections are shared. In the early days, broadband was not secure, u could see your neighbors PC’s and they could see yours.
What matters is if there is enough bandwidth to handle the clients using it. Since that pushes up cost, the company’s try to keep that as low as possible.
Not sure what you mean by adapter. Router? I think Smart is more reliable than Globe but that can depend on the area. Smart cell phone service in the Bogo area, is nearly worthless. Last week when our connection went down for several days, Smart remained up, only Globe was down. Actually, it was this week, From Saturday until Monday. Grrrrr
Hmmp.. Thanks for the idea rusty. Oh yeah I remember last week when I was try to contacted globe customer service since i had a problem with my connection. I always got an answer saying that for Cebu based client undergoing internet connection problem and they are saying Cebu only why I do have connection problem.? Regarding with the adapter that I am talking about its because I’m thinking that maybe, why smartbro is better since they will going to set up an antenna which they called the (canopy) using authentication to allow you access to internet connection. When you connect your computer to the canopy and open a browser you’re being redirected to smart broadband page. And they dont need to connect it to other houses who are using the same connection. While in Globe I didnot see any antenna. They are using a cable connected to the other user which they facilitate it, said that they cant install a connection for you if you are too far from other user. I am just thinking the difference anyway but I am still confused LOL..
) Though I am thinking right now to give up my Globe broadband and get the smart broadband again..
I believe the restaurant’s service differs in each area of the country. In provinces like Cebu, small restaurants may not have a menu at all and that can prove a challenge. But not to worry, most of Filipinos can speak english and they tend to be nicer and more attentive to foreigners than they are to their countrymen. Yeah — the disadvantage of living in your own country. But that’s widely accepted.
When you go to Vietnam or Cambodia however, things may be a bit different. It may take time for you to get served if you don’t speak their language. You would have to wait for the resto’s manager to approach you, most likely he’s/she’s the only one who can speak english and take your order. One time I saw the waiters pushing each other to approach our table, and nobody budged. Until alas! the manager came.. But this was in one of the places in a bus stop during my travel from Vietnam to Cambodia and may not ring right for the whole country.
It was good to stumble into a site where a foreigner takes time to write about how he sees the Philippines. Will check your site once in awhile.