TM Point : Service with a smile?

I made a trip to the TM Point in Kepong recently to pay the phone bill and make an enquiry about an item which I had paid for when I applied for the line in TM Point Uptown Damansara that appeared in my bill.

When I got to the front of the queue, I was served by a smiling and friendly lady at counter 7 who told me she'd minus the amount from the amount payable for me but I had to go see the guy at the counter where we got the queue numbers from for help with checking and adjusting for the anomaly.

And here comes the anger raising part... this G. Maniam dude (i think that's his name) sitting at the counter... first he tells me "its for the stamp duty ms, do you remember if you paid for it then?" (this is after i've shown him the monthly bill showing a charge for number search and the receipt for the charge that clearly said I paid for number search). Then fine, I dug around and found the form on which there's a stamp saying stamp duty paid.

The cheek told me, "Miss, you will have to go back to Uptown where you registered the line to check this". All this while with an unsmiling face and a tone that doesn't inspire any customer loyalty. This is after a lot of mumbling about stamp duty and such you see and I am not happy.

So I asked, I am sure you are able to check that at this branch through the Computer system right? And he said no Miss, you'll have to go there and have them check this. So I said, I think you could just give them a call and have someone there check it if this is really the case right? You can't expect me to drive all the way there just for this, and this is with your entire system completely networked and linked and plus you're a telecommunications company for Gods sake! (alright alright I added the Gods sake part just right now). But honestly...

In the end, after like five whole minutes, he told me he'll refer me to a customer service personnel here in this branch and gave me another queue ticket. This Customer Service Rep at Counter 1 took all of 1 minute to check it on his computer and said he'll have to make a photocopy of the bills in order to process the request. A photocopy session and 2 minutes later, comes back and tells me there's been a system down on the day I registered and this will all be rectified by my next bill. Total time spent - less than five minutes, problem solved, smiling faces all around...

It makes me wonder, why can't the guy sitting at the reception table just tell me right at the beginning: "I will have to refer this to our Customer Service Rep for verifying and change but you will have to wait on a new queue number if that is alright?" with a smiling face? That would have taken him all of 30 seconds and I wouldn't have gotten half pissed off.

Service Quality: Payment Counter, Customer Service (application) - 5 Stars
Reception/Enquiries - 0 Star