5 lessons from the Singtel outage on Dec 3rd

Over the weekend, the broadband service of Singapore’s largest telecommunication company, Singtel, broke down across the country, leaving many Singaporeans without broadband access to the internet. The problem started at about 8.21am - 9.00am and was only fully resolved the morning of the next day.

With every crisis comes opportunity. Unfortunately for Singtel, they wasted much of the opportunity to leave a good impression on customers with a poor handling of the crisis. Here are 5 things that you can take away from Singtel’s handling of the breakdown of their broadband service.

1. When things fail, reach out to your customers with information with as many channels as possible

During the entire incident, Singtel seemed to only be communicating with customers through their facebook account (even the news agencies in Singapore got their updates through facebook). Their website was down, and their customer helpline completely swarmed. Huge amounts of frustration built up as there was no real way customers could reach the company.

Singtel’s sole reliance on facebook as a channel to reach out to customers is befuddling, given that it also has a twitter account. As the biggest telecommunications company in Singapore it could have made press releases and got the media to broadcast news of its breakdown of services.

THE PROBLEM

Recognise that when things go wrong, people are desperate to find information to understand and fix their situation. If as a business, you try to make their lives difficult by making it difficult to find the information, your customers will hate you more than they already do.

Thus, when a problem happens, use as many ways as possible to reach out to affected customers to let them know about the situation and what they can do in the meantime.

RECOMMENDATION

Singtel should have taken all possible channels to inform customers of the outage and how they can get updates on the situation

•  Singtel could have taken the initiative and sent sms to registered customers
• The automated response to customer service could have acknowledged that Singtel is aware of the broadband breakdown. The automated response could then ask the caller to type in their phone numbers to receive sms updates
• Singtel could have used twitter to tweet updates
• Singtel could have called for a press conference and have the press spread the word out for them

2. Engage your customers: Make them feel involved in solving the problem

Singtel’s communication and customer engagement during the crisis was largely one-way. There was no response to facebook comments. If you wanted to communicate with the company directly, you would have had to call the company’s hotline, 1688.

Once connected, customers were greeted by an automated response stating that Singtel was receiving too many calls at the moment to take theirs. And then the line will cut off. Not only did this abruptly kill the customer’s only real chance to feel heard by Singtel, it also wasted one of Singtel’s best chances to impress the irritated customer.

THE PROBLEM

During times of crisis, people respond by eagerly and actively seeking out ways to solve their personal problem. Even if it is completely irrational, as long as people feel like they are doing something to improve their situation (even if there are no visible results), they feel better about their situation than if they did nothing. This explains why when we are in a rush we tend to press the lift button several times even if rationally we know it is not going to make the lift come any faster.

If as a business you cannot immediately solve your customers’ problem, then admit this fact to them and work to include them in your problem-solving process. In other words, make your customers feel they can help to solve their own problems by helping you. Not only does this make them feel a little better, you now have primary data you can use.

But make this process simple and effortless. Don’t cause more frustration than you already are causing with the breakdown of your services.

RECOMMENDATION

If Singtel immediately changed their automated response to acknowledge that there was a internet breakdown, it could have followed it up with asking callers to specify where they live either through a series of questions or through entering the callers’ postcode. Next, let callers know Singtel is gathering this information to figure out which parts of the island are affected. Then end this section by thanking the caller for their help in supporting Singtel in its efforts to solve the problem. Last, go back to the previous recommendation about asking the caller if they would like to subscribe to sms updates.

3. Let your customers in on the repair process to increase empathy

Throughout the entire period of the problem, Singtel relied on text-based facebook updates. These updates were mainly about the internet breakdown and notice of mobile data waivers. There was virtually no information about what exactly Singtel was doing to rectify the problems, and if a problem was identified it was encased in jargon (could someone explain why servers need to assign IP addresses to modems for the Internet to work? You can't assume everyone knows as much about the Internet as you do as a telecommunication company).

On the topic of rectifying the internet outage, Singtel kept claiming their engineers were working on the problem. When I think of their Singtel engineers I think of a bunch of bespectacled and heavily pimpled geeks furiously debugging through lines of code. Or maybe they were playing minesweeper or maybe there were aliens. My point is, when Singtel says ‘We’re fixing the problem tirelessly!’, the mental image I get is a black box.

THE PROBLEM

When people don’t know what is happening or can’t imagine the process on your end, they are less inclined and able to sympathise with you. If you want to get your customers to be more understanding to your situation (and swarm you with less complains), you have to let them in on your problem so that they can understand your side of the story. This is not very different from keeping your boss aware of all the things you are doing for the company so that he/she is more inclined to think you deserve a raise.

RECOMMENDATION

• Singtel could have shot a short video of their engineers working on the problem accompanied with a short interview (2-3 questions) with an engineer representative explaining their plan of action and what they do. This gives a clear mental image to affected customers what Singtel is doing to rectify the internet breakdown
• Singtel could have posted diagrams or short video clips of its staff explaining the problem its users were facing. For instance, Singtel said that ‘our servers cannot assign IP addresses to our customer’s moderns’. It could have taken a video with a whiteboard and explained this piece of technical information. Starhub then ruled out a DDoS attack. Again, it could have made a simple video explaining what a DDoS attack was (yes, we could have googled it, but Singtel could also have explained it. Don't make me think is the name of a famous book) and why it was ruled out as a cause of the breakdown.

4.      Be sincere: Focus on the apology and suspend all other business activities

Throughout the incident on Saturday and on Sunday, and in between updates about how sorry they were about the internet disruption, Singtel was still posting updates about promotions (if you go to their facebook you will see that these promotion posts became spammed with angry rants). Its facebook cover picture was about (and still is) celebrating Christmas with Nathan Hartono.

On December 4th when services were restored, Singtel continued posting promotions. Besides the constantly updated post about the internet breakdown, they are no mentions about the incident. No Singtel executive or representative has yet to issue a public apology to affected customers.

Really? Singtel is sorry? It seems more like they couldn’t care less about the problem they caused customers, are more concerned about sweeping their blunder under the carpet, and are just eager to get back to money-making. In other words, in case you’ve not noticed, Singtel is just a greedy, knavish (insert choice of insult) out to get your money. Engage at your own peril. 

THE PROBLEM

It’s good to apologise when you are in the wrong or cause your customers trouble (even if it was not your fault to begin with). But fundamental to a good apology is sincerity. If you are running a business, that sincerity shouldn’t just be said, but also expressed through business decisions. As will be discussed in the next point, discounts and waivers are one way to express one’s apology, but little things like taking responsibility of the problem, or showing customers your focus is now on the apology also matters too.

RECOMMENDATION

• Singtel could have called a press conference and had company representatives explain the matter and apologise on behalf of the company. (Yes, they could do it this week, but the lag in time makes the apology lose its weight)
• Singtel could have changed all their company’s touchpoints (social media accounts, press, webpage) to reflect the company’s supposed state of apology.
• Increase the 10% discount for January’s broadband bill to 20%. 10% feels the company is being stingy and reluctant to take full punishment for the failure of its services. (In my opinion Singtel should have offered to take 20% off the bill for every 3-hour chunk the disruption caused, capped at a maximum of 100%. The genius of this method is that it flips the tables around and makes customers be happy about the disruption. Singtel has other revenue streams too, so it will not cripple the company’s cashflow)

5.  Waivers and Discounts are good, but are not everything

To Singtel’s credit, they offered to wavier Singtel mobile data charges when they realised that the broadband outage was an issue that would take them some time to fix (There are still some problems as pointed out in this article). On Sunday, Singtel further offered to knock of 10% of the broadband bill of its customers.

THE PROBLEM

Given the size and gravity of Saturday’s internet disruption, I think the wavers and discounts were necessary to convey Singtel’s apology for the failure in delivering its services. Still, I have some gripes about Singtel’s approach to the financial compensation.

If we look at Singtel’s approach to handling the situation, the waivers and discounts are currently used as the only way to make up for the broadband disruption (remember that customer service and engagement was terrible throughout the incident). In other words, Singtel seems to think that throwing money at the problem will make up for the bad image they created for themselves through the poor handling of Saturday’s fiasco.

It wouldn’t.

In his talk ‘Building a Winning UX Strategy using the Kano Model’, Jared Spool talks about the difference between fulfilling the expectations of customers and doing little things that delight them. He argues that unless a business meets the basic expectations of customers, no amount of little delightful rewards will compensate for their bad experiences of having unmet basic expectations. Think about it. Would you rather book a hotel that has poor customer service and no hot showers but will give you a 10% discount? Or would you prefer a hotel with functioning hot showers, excellent customer service, but charges at full price?

In other words, customers will continue to think badly about you even if you give them monetary compensation for bad products and service. You should give monetary compensation or they’ll hate you more, but you should also recognise you have to go further than monetary compensation to win back their trust and good impressions of your business.

Another problem with compensating your customers as a company’s main strategy to woo customers is that it will inevitably drain revenues. Even if you could afford this one time, this one time will train your customers to expect monetary compensation from you all the other times you make mistakes in the future. As their dissatisfaction grows with your company, they will start to demand more and more monetary compensation. One of the reasons they may choose to stay is because they know you will offer monetary kickbacks at the first instance. In my opinion, such a position is highly unfavourable for a company to be in.

The best position to be in is for customers to feel delighted when you compensate them financially. You achieve this by giving them all the non-monetary things first, including making sure your product meets expectations, your customer service is first-class, and you respond well when problems happen.

Last, recognise that as a business, you can add value to your customers at very little cost. You do this, as highlighted in Lessons 1-4, by showing customers that you truly can about them. I wouldn’t elaborate more about the ways you can do this, but I will recommend the book, Zilch: The Power of Zero by Nancy Lublin.

RECOMMENDATION

• Follow through most of the recommendations listed above
• For customers whose work were affected by the internet breakdown, offer to send them texts/ letters that they can show to their teachers or bosses as an official excuse.
• Take all precautions to avoid any service disruptions in the future. If they happen, then make sure there is a backup plan and that customer service is impeccable.