Nearly one year after its launch in May 2016,
Singapore’s mobile digital telco Circles.Life is facing a chorus of
complaints about its delivery of SIM cards, botched number porting,
and customer service responsiveness.
However, the virtual network operator is adamant that
these complaints are isolated, stating that its customer
satisfaction scores are “unparallelled in the industry”.
Some customers of Circles.Life feel that they are
running around in circles, especially since the company does not
have any brick and mortar storefronts.
SIM cards are issued via couriers, while other services
like number-porting and purchases of phones are done online.
Ms Jane Leow is one of the customers who was left
without a SIM card after a scheduled delivery was not fulfilled by
Circles.Life, despite waiting in her office the entire day.
“I scheduled the delivery to my office on March 29
since it’s a weekday, between 2pm to 6pm,” said Ms Leow, 33, a
civil servant. “I waited at my office the whole day and there was
no call.
“I later got an SMS that the delivery attempt was not
successful. I was prompted to pay $15 for a redelivery.”
Since its public launch in May 2016, the Consumers
Association Of Singapore (Case) has received seven complaints
against Liberty Wireless, which operates Circles.Life.
The latest complaint filed to Case in April 2017 was
regarding number porting.
“The consumer reported that the company failed to
properly transfer his existing phone number from his original
service provider,” Case’s executive director Loy York Jiun told
TODAY.
A check on Circles.Life’s Facebook page also revealed
numerous feedback over the past two weeks about the delivery of SIM
cards, number porting, and customer service responsiveness.
It was deja vu again for Ms Leow on April 3, as she
applied for leave from work just to receive the delivery of her new
SIM card — this time at her home — between 2pm and 6pm.
At 5pm, Ms Leow was worried that the delivery would
fail again.
Frustrated that there was a long waiting time just to
chat with one of its agents online, she decided to message them on
their Facebook page instead at 5.11pm.
Ms Leow explained: “The website indicated that there
were 10 customers ahead of me, and I didn’t want to wait for 30
minutes and repeat my complaint.”
To her horror, the Circles.Life officer manning its
Facebook page claimed that the courier delivered her SIM card at
1.59pm.
Shortly after leaving a flurry of messages on the
Circles.Life Facebook page, there was a knock on her door at 6.10pm
by the Singapore Post courier, with her SIM card.
Despite the deluge of customer feedback, Circles.Life
said its delivery success rates are “in the highest tier of the
industry benchmarks”, which includes telcos as well as other
e-commerce companies.
“We are always improving our delivery process with the
goal of zero failed deliveries in mind at all times. Therefore, we
are always exploring options,” said the company’s marketing
manager, Megan Yulga.
While there are no current plans to allow for
self-collection, Circles.Life is not ruling out that option, as
long as the regulatory documentation checks are fulfilled.
The lack of other channels to contact Circles.Life
representatives is also a big concern for customers.
“What if there is a network outage? We can’t even chat
with them online then,” said Mr Muzkmmil Mohamad, 30.
“The current channel isn’t feasible. (Circles.Life)
needs to have a customer service hotline,” the administrative
assistant added.
The lack of 24hours live chat is also a concern for Ms
Leow. Currently, Circles.Life’s live chat channel is only manned
from 9am to 10pm on weekdays.
“What if I have a query in the middle of the night? Do
I need to wait until the next morning?” Ms Leow asked.
For now, Circles.Life claims that it has been achieving
industry standard customer service ratings of “well above” 90 per
cent, while averages for the telco industry hovers between 60 per
cent and 70 per cent.
“If our customers give overwhelming feedback that new
channels would make their experience even better, we will
absolutely explore those options,” Ms Yulga said.
Ms Yulga also stressed that Circles.Life’s
infrastructure is ready to accommodate a bigger capacity, such as
its recent promotion offering an extra 20GB worth of data for S$20
for new and existing subscribers.
“Given our operations experience and long planning for
the 20 GB for S$20 data plus option, we have been able to not only
maintain, but also in some metrics, exceeded our operational
metrics despite the strong response from the launch of our new
product,” said Ms Yulga.
“Despite us meeting our operational metrics, the sheer
volume of growth means there are rare and isolated cases where
deliveries have not gone to plan.
“Separately, our port-in your number system continues
to be the most seamless experience in Singapore today and issues
related to that have been extremely rare.”
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