Twitter has become a legitimate avenue for customers to be heard both by other consumers as well as brands that are vying for their affection. Also, increasingly, Twitter has become an additional channel for brands to effectively track and address customer issues.

The latest to join the bandwagon and use Twitter as a customer service channel is TM. The brand today launched @TMConnects, a specific channel to address TM-service related support and queries. In terms of social media, TM was slow off the starting blocks being one of the last amongst the telecommunications providers to come on the social media space, but as they say, better late than never.

Looks like things are indeed turning around at TM and we applaud the telecommunications juggernaut’s brave move to bring more depth in its engagement with its customers online. The decision to come on Twitter is by no means easy for Malaysia’s biggest telecommunications company. Pleasing millions of customers and getting the right message across with just 140 characters will be a challenge for the new customer support channel but it is off on the right foot by making clear some rules of engagement to establish the right framework in conversations with fellow Twitter followers.

At the end of the day, the proof is in eating the pudding. The @TMConnects now needs to show how timely. proactive and social it is in addressing customer issues. Good luck guys.

Follow @TMConnects here. So what do you think of TM’s move to have customer support on Twitter?

On a side note. Of late we’re been experiencing sporadic network performance with our UniFi account. A quick check on Twitter reveals that we’re not alone. Over the weekend, there was a spike (as far as we can observe) in the number of complaints and negative mentions about the performance of Streamyx and UniFi especially at night. We hope the TM techs are resolving the matter.

Our Malaysia Broadband Cost Comparison post is in dire need of an update since most broadband providers had revised/introduced new broadband plans. As demanded by you, we’ve updated the broadband comparison table as below:

Further breakdown with speed & excess charge by categories after the jump.

Fixed Broadband

Mobile Broadband

Mobile Internet

Which plan to pick?
There’s no clear cut choice when it comes to broadband plans as it varies depending on usability, quota, excess fees and speed. The cost comparison here serves as a guide based on cost per GB which caters to your monthly broadband demand.

For the heavy user, fixed broadband of the FTTH variety offers the best of speed together with generous quota. For those on the move, most plans below 5GB are offered under RM100. For the demanding users, most plans of 10GB and above are well between RM100-RM200 range. Generally, most users won’t use as much data while on the go as compared to home. Also you would need to take note of excess charges if you have the tendency to exceed your monthly quota. Some plans might reduce your speed without additional charges while others charge a rather expensive pay as you go rate.

Another point when considering a plan is a network quality. While most networks boast high up to speeds, the realistic achievable speed is normally lower than the paper claims. Checking among your friends or peers would be a good reference point to find out if the service provider is good.

Apart from speed, coverage is another issue as well. If you travel a lot outstations, you would need to check with the provider’s coverage map. You can check out last year’s comparison here.

Do let us know in the comments if you spot any errors.

Yet another TM parody account has cropped on Twitter, announced the official TM Twitter account. This one is called TMnow and so far there’s been very little activity in the account compared to the other more famous TM parody account, StreamyxMY.

Just so you know.

[source]

Last Friday, we were invited to a blogger and Twiteratti briefing and feedback session by TM where a select few what TM considers “influencers” in the social media space were invited to share their feedback and get updates on some of the hot topic issues surrounding the company like security and Fair Usage Policies.

To be frank we didn’t expected much. We’ve been to one too many of these things and always we are met with the host organisation’s middle management who, for the most part, really couldn’t give us any real answers or provide the assurance that our feedback and comments will be put to action. Put simply, these blogger meets are usually free eats and lip-service with not much else.

The tone at the TM meet was decidedly different. We expected middle management but instead we were greeted by group CEO Dato’ Sri Zamzamzairani along with his team of top C-level executives like Chief Strategy Office Ahmad Azhar Yahya and Chief Marketing Officer Rozalila Abdul Rahman along with key people like EVP of New Media Jeremy Kung and VP of Group Corp Communications Izlyn Ramli.

The underlying objective of the meet was to start a dialogue with these “influencers” and to distill the feedback and discussion points gathered from the session so that it will, through time, make a positive impact on TM, its operations and its service. In his welcome note Dato’ Zam admits that TM might not have all the answers now but establishing this dialogue was an important point in TM’s strategy to continuously improve its services and change the negative public perception that has been hanging over the company like a dark, overbearing cloud for as long as anyone could remember.

From the start, it was clear that TM meant for this social media session to be something that will eventually make a difference in the way TM operate and render their services. After all, if the group CEO was willing to give up his Friday night to be with a few bloggers surely we wouldn’t want to waste his time.

In the briefing, TM shared inside information of its operations and network that we are pretty sure not many operators will be comfortable or as casual sharing.

HyppTV: What’s the gameplan
From the beginning, we were curious as to what are TM’s plans for HyppTV — its IPTV service offered together with UniFi subscriptions. TM is rather reserved about claiming that HyppTV as an actual competitor to Astro stating that it offered a range of services that is somewhat different from Astro. TM said that HyppTV will be focused more on offering video-on-demand (VOD) content that’s not directly going head to head with Astro.

We see TM’s positioning of HyppTV as a source of VOD as confused. Essentially, HyppTV offers the same service as Astro on that premise that you pay for TV content. It doesn’t make sense of a user to have two set top boxes (one for Astro and one for HyppTV) at home. It’s just too much of a hassle to switch between the two. As subscribers of UniFi, we can attest to the hassle of having two TV boxes.

Fact of the matter is the average Joe would only have room for one set-top box and at the rate in which HYppTV is going, most will probably choose Astro over HyppTV. Astro simply has better equipment and more importantly, better content. Granted, there will be some who find HyppTV’s offerings interesting but it is safe to say that the number won’t be sufficient to sustain the service for the long run.

To be in the game HyppTV needs to change its positioning — that’s what we think anyway.

Customer service
On customer service, TM admits there is much room for improvement and it has implemented a number of initiatives to ensure that the improvements are felt by its customers but TM is also realistic in telling us that these improvements will take time.

One of the major issues is making sure customers are able to get through the line when they call TM customers service. TM reveals that currently there are just too many calls and too many types of calls coming in. TM knows this and are working to add more people in its call centre in addition to having separate call centre numbers for different matters.

Another way to manage the number of calls coming into the centre is to keep customers informed and updated through more than one channel to make sure that they not only get the message but are regularly updated when there is a service disruption.

TM is also looking at improving the quality of is customer service staff through better training and better communication flow on network and service developments or disruptions so that its call centre is always the first to know and also completely knowledgeable to handle technical customers.

Dato’ Zam was passionate when the topic came to customer service. He said that the good service and good products are the best customer service. So in this respect, the end game is for TM to deliver a very good service so that there is no need for customers to call in to complain.

Streamyx: The service is so bad because some people are having it too good
In the briefing, we were presented with some revealing facts. One of the biggest issues facing TM today is capacity and this has affected TM’s capability to deliver acceptable performance to its subscribers. What is causing this deficit in capacity? The answer is data hogs.

TM data reveals that on average heavy users consume over half of TM’s traffic volume. These heavy users account for 14% of Streamyx subscribers. In short, less than a quarter of Streamyx subscribers are using close to 50% of the capacity using more than 25GB of data a month, some as high as an unbelievable 1TB a month. At the other end of the spectrum, a majority of Streamyx subscribers (over 60%) use less than 10GB of data a month while the remaining 25% use between 10GB to 25GB of data a month.

This means a small number of users are using too much of the capacity. So much so that it is affecting a larger number of subscribers. Adding more capacity won’t solve the problem either, as the more capacity is added, the more data these heavy users will consume data. In fact, TM has quadrupled its capacity in the last few years but the issue still remains.

Something drastic needs to happen to ensure that capacity and bandwidth is properly an efficiently managed for the benefit of everyone. What this is, we will go into detail later in this article.

UniFi: Making an impact in more than one way
TM reports that UniFi will create over 100,000 new jobs by 2017 and contribute 0.6% to the GDP. Currently there are close to 30,000 UniFi subscribers with 40% of users facing some sort of issue be it technical or performance related. TM claims that this is well within the industry norm, what that norm is was not revealed.

In terms of capacity, close to 80% of UniFi subscribers are using less that 100GB per month, a little over 12% are using between 100GB – 200GB a month. In terms of capacity, this by itself is already a large amount but what is even more absurd is that there are those within the UniFi network that are using up to 4TB of data a month!

If this is not properly managed UniFi subscribers will soon find themselves in a similar predicament as Streamyx subscribers. And once again we find ourselves pondering on the fact that adding capacity is not the solution. Rather, a drastic shift in the way people subscribe to broadband service needs to happen. What it is, we will reveal in a bit.

UniFi: Security and device issues
The issue of the UniFi router being easily compromised through the remote access exploit is well document one but it was also an issue that TM had addressed very quickly.

In the short term, TM has completely disabled remote management for its UniFi routers. In addition, TM worked closely with some of the more advanced UniFi users on a long term solution and as a result will roll-out a firmware upgrade to further enhance the security of the UniFi router by the end of February 2011.

In addition, weak signal strength of the custom D-LINK DIR-615 WiFi router that is included with every UniFi installation is a known issue and TM confirms that it is in the midst of sourcing for multiple vendors to improve the quality of the modems and routers that it provides to its customers. In the meantime TM says that it is ok for UniFi subscribers to use their own WiFi router to boost the WiFi coverage.

Broadband: The new frontier
So with so few people utilising so much of TM’s capacity, what is the drastic change that needs to happen to ensure that customers get good internet connectivity while still being able to do things that they want to do online?

Firstly, we need to understand that TM is not the only one affected by this capacity issue. Every Internet service provider in the country is affected. TM is the worse impacted by this issue because being a fixed line operator means more people are on their network for longer.

Secondly, we as users need to realise that the days of all-you-can-eat broadband plans are numbered. In Malaysia it is no longer a question of should I get broadband but a matter of which broadband plan is right for me. More Malaysians today want broadband in their home and in their mobile devices than ever before, on the same token, broadband has never been so affordable. The fact of the matter is broadband demand is the strongest it has ever been in the country.

But broadband, specifically capacity, is not an infinite resource. Like any utility, broadband capacity has a limit and we need to start using broadband with this notion in mind because things are going to change. Operators will come down hard on data hogs, and not only that, content owners and regulators will join in the fight to stop the rampant download of illegal content from the Internet as well.

In fact, an upcoming legislation will require ISPs to issue warning letters if a user has partaken in copyright infringements — as in download illegal content from the Internet. And don’t think that this is still a long way away. As it is, film studios and record labels in the US have already issued letters to local ISPs to crackdown on users who are using their broadband connection to download pirated content. This is the reality and like it or not we all need to be responsible with how and how much with use the Internet.

This is a cliched analogy but it is the best one, imagine broadband like it is electricity. With electricity, you don’t switch on every air-conditioner in your home 24/7 all year long, that would be ridiculous, you’d rack up a very expensive bill every month. Well, its going to be same with broadband. The time will come when all of us will have to start being conservative with our broadband use and it will come soon.

Internet service providers in the country, be it mobile or fixed are now at the cusp of a new frontier in the broadband landscape. There will be stricter method of bandwidth monitoring, there will be new broadband plans that need to strike a balance between optimum management of limited capacity resource and delivering the satisfaction and flexibility broadband users in Malaysia expect.

Truth of the matter is, no operator in the country, or the world for that matter, have had experience with this before. There will be some learning to be done on the operators side and there has to be some understanding on the consumer side when we enter this new frontier but make no mistake, things will change.

At the end of the day
Overall, it was, in our opinion at least, a tremendously good session. We can say with some conviction that the TM today is not your father’s TM from before.

People at TM know their stuff and they are a friendly bunch of people. For Dato’ Zam and his team to take the effort to spend time and share the kind of information that they did with bloggers, it says a great deal in way of their sincerity and their desire to provide the best that they can to the customers.

TM is serious about making a difference but the problem is the organisation is just too big of a company for change to happen quickly. And Dato’ Zam agrees that this is an issue when he joked, “the problem with a big company is that sometimes the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” he finishes by saying “but were addressing this.”

Imagine a large cruise liner, it takes time from when the captain gives an order to steer the ship in one direction before the ship does eventually go that direction. Similarly it will take time for things to change at TM.

In any case, after the briefing, our perception of TM has forever changed. Many will agree that TM is seen as an organisation that is incompetent, lax and uncompetitive. To an extent, we share the same view but but not anymore. From our discussions with the top management of TM on that night, we can see that the leadership of TM has the desire to affect change. They know what is wrong with TM and they know what to do. The thing now is to do what needs to be done and to do it quickly.

Many will not agree with our opinion of TM and that’s ok. This is just our opinion, our observations from our interactions with the top management of TM at the meet. It is our job to share with you our thoughts but it is not our job to convince you that TM is now a better company.

That task lie solely on the shoulders of the good people at TM, If they could demonstrate to the Joe Public what we’ve seen during the briefing last Friday, if they can communicate the positivity, the dynamism, the desire to deliver a better service to their customers and more importantly, to their own people than that’s the battle half won. For now, we can only wish TM all the best in this new front

[ picture credit: yonsterz ]

38 hours after the outage affecting 2,000 Streamyx and UniFi subscribers in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Puchong, USJ, Lapangan Terbang Subang, Shah Alam, Selat Klang Utara and Bukit Kemuning was detected, TM has issued a statement saying that the issue has been resolved and all affected subscribers are able to connect to the Internet.

The statement made available online informs that its UniFi and Streamyx services have been restored as of 0300hrs on Friday, 10 December 2010 and TM is currently monitoring the situation for any eventuality.

The statement however did not indicate if the affected subs will be compensated in any way. We have sent a question to TM on the same yesterday but have yet to receive a response. We will keep you updated if there is a response from TM on this.

In the meantime, can users in the affected areas verify that service has been fully restored?

Update (10122010 1158hrs): TM issues a statement to say service in affected areas is restored

TM has issued an official statement with regards to the service interruption of not just its UniFi fibre broadband service but also it Streamyx broadband service as well. The interruption is affects 2,000 subscribers and it looks like the the service disruption is still unresolved.

The affected areas are as follows:
UniFi — Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, USJ, Lapangan Terbang Subang, Puchong and Bukit Kemuning
Streamyx — Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Puchong, USJ, Lapangan Terbang Subang, Shah Alam, Selat Klang Utara and Bukit Kemuning

TM says that restoration works are currently in progress but did not indicate how long this restoration work will take. Click here to see the official statement from TM.

Service disruption for TM’s UniFi and Streamyx started yesterday (December 8, 2010) since 1330hrs. If you’re keeping count, that’s over 25 hours of no Internet for the 2,000 affected subscribers. Bummer.

Are you affected by the outage? How are you coping without Internet at home?

UPDATE (101130 2100) : Broadband Pricing Comparison in Malaysia updated with Maxis iPad Plans.

UPDATE (101120 1230) : Broadband Pricing Comparison in Malaysia now with Yes data pricing including rebates.

Recently after the appearance of yes 4G rates, everybody gets cost conscious all of a sudden about Broadband pricing. Some had quickly mentioned that yes 9 sen/3MB ain’t cheap with some pointing out that it costs RM900 for their average 30GB of download usage.

Since cost per GB is a hot topic now, we figured why don’t we compare all broadband offerings in Malaysia and find out how much they cost per GB. Below is our findings ranking from the cheapest to the most expensive.

Cost per GB

NOTE: So far we only considered plans either postpaid or prepaid that offer monthly access. Also added are the standard PAYU (Pay as you go) rates which includes yes and Tune Talk. There are different policies and terms for each plans with some only calculating download quota while others include uploads. There are also other factors to consider such as download speeds and excess charge if you exceed Fair Usage Policy. Streamyx ADSL was excluded due to the fact that they offer “unlimited access” with unspecified quota on a best effort basis.

We do admit that it is unfair to compare cost per GB across the board as there’s an obvious differentiator when it comes to application. In general, obviously fixed broadband is cheaper per GB but it compromises on mobility which often comes at a higher cost. To make it clearer, we have segregate the broadband offerings into 3 categories: Fixed Broadband, Mobile Broadband (Pure Data) and Mobile Internet (Add-on for Phone). Check out the other 3 tables in detail after the jump.

Fixed Broadband

Note:
UniFi has not implemented download quota on its usage
FTTH Broadbands such as UniFi and Maxis offers more realistic up to speeds than other providers

Mobile Broadband

Mobile Internet

Note:
Celcom blocks usage upon FUP, required to buy daily RM3.88 pass until next billing cycle
Maxis Mobile Unlimited Plan has been discontinued for new subscription

Do drop us a comment or feedback if we left out a plan or if you spot any mistakes on the table.

This video first made its online appearance in May and we have to admit, this is the first time we’re seeing this. It starts off showing an irate customer giving a TM Point front-liner a hell of a mouthing about, from what we can gather, is a problematic Internet connection.

Then the, we can only assume, branch manager steps in trying to find an amicable solution to the problem but the customer is having none of it and walks out. The branch manager look distraught and sets in motion a bee-hive a activity from the TM workforce to solve the customer’s problem. How the video ends, you have to watch it for yourself.

We guess the video-mercial was made with good intentions but it begs the question, why let it get to that point to begin with? We’re pretty sure if the antagonist in the video was a real customer he would’ve called TM customer service numerous times to get his Internet fixed. It’s not in the psychology of a customer to just barge into a shop and make noise without first being completely frustrated with the service being rendered.

Also, the video portrays the customer as the idiot, the one who always marah tak tentu pasal. A person who has a short fuse, can never be rational with and will always want things done on the double. The customer, it seems, is evil.

And so, the video leaves us wondering, what is actually the message that it is trying to get across? If it is that TM takes customer satisfaction very seriously, then surely prevention is better than cure.

Or could it be that with this video TM is slyly telling its customers, “look how much of a douchebag you look like making noise at TM Point”?

What do you think?

Both the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) and the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) said that social media savvy employees need to be careful what they put online about their employers or risk disciplinary action even dismissal for their words.

There is one caveat however and that is what’s mentioned must be “backed by facts and figures“.

Looks like this rule doesn’t apply to Parliament members when it comes to presenting arguments in the Dewan Rakyat.

In a recent Parliement session, Bandar Kuching Member of Parliament Chong Chieng Jen argued that TM favours UniFi customers of Streamyx. The MP claims that Streamyx subscribers are getting slower speeds after UniFi was launched citing that TM is giving priority to its fiber optic service subscribers.

What logic possessed him to think that his beyond us. According to the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture, Dato’ Joseph Salang, there are over 1.4 million Streamyx subscribers and about 6,000 UniFi subscribers’ and if you have any common sense you’d know that favouring 6,000 over 1.4 million doesn’t make much sense for TM.

What a douchebag.

Check out the Parliament session video after the jump.

[via]

Streamyx users are crying foul by its move to throttle download speed. Users at Lowyat.net had reported that Streamyx had imposed throttling on video formats such as AVI and MKV. Some of them had proven the throttle by comparing downloads from their servers with different file format and the difference is clear.

In one example the original MKV file had a transfer rate of 35KB/s while the similar file renamed to RAR managed to get full speed of 571KB/s. There are many other examples showing the disparity in the forum thread as well. The quick solution for this is to change your file extensions if possible to RAR which allows download at full speed.

According to an unknown source in TM, such throttling exist for non-whitelisted sites on their networks. This could be TM’s new mechanism to pick on selected media formats for FUP (Fair Usage Policy) enforcement with exception for popular video sites such as youtube. So far this hasn’t affected UniFi subscribers.

Throttling is nothing new for Streamyx but it is expected considering how its “unlimited usage” is taken advantaged by power users. The least they could do is to make their FUP clear and known to public first before doing so.

[ SOURCE ]