Sales, Social and Tech

A complaint appeared on Leveno Singapore Facebook Page on how a user encountered countless problems with her one year old thinkpad x220. Despite having paid additional for Lenovo's next business day warranty, it took awhile for the user to get any service. Wrote Jan Chia on Lenovo Singapore Facebook Page, " I am so disappointed with my one year old thinkpad x220. Despite purchasing the next business day international warranty, I had to wait over a week to receive servicing. Sadly, the laptop has been serviced numerous times over the past year. ..  It's tiring to call customer service daily, I have given up. " Though Lenovo Singapore has forwarded her case to Lenovo Customer Care department,  there have been no updates from Lenovo as time of this published post. As the admin of Lenovo Singapore requested openly for Jan's serial number, the details for her warranty are as follows: System Info Type: Model: Serial number: 4290 RS8 R9ED57E - Base W

(Update: Burger King SG has made this video private and is no longer publicly accessible.) You know an ad campaign has gone terrible wrong when it needs explaining. Burger King SG recently launched an interactive Youtube video re-enacting an incident in Singapore where a young man was film pushing an elderly woman on the bus. This video aimed to promote its flame grill chicken products. Though the video has not reached viral status yet, comments have been against the video. Commented on MC Trave on Facebook, "In regards to the advertisment of the Furious Man about to hit the elderly, i demand Burger King to take it down and issue an apology. The incident is not something you can just simply capitalise on to sell your food." At the YouTube site, sgxpress95 wrote, "hi BK, on behalf of the people involved in the fight, i hope you do not release the videos as,they (including me) find it as offensive." Burger King Singapore has since replied on its Faceb

Seth Godin recently post his definition of customer service. This is something where Singtel can learn as it looks to tackle the viral complaint about its 3G services. Wrote Seth Godin ,  "The only purpose of 'customer service'... is to change feelings. Not the facts, but the way your customer feels. The facts might be the price, or a return, or how long someone had to wait for service. Sometimes changing the facts is a shortcut to changing feelings, but not always, and changing the facts alone is not always sufficient anyway. The customer who seeks out your help isn't often looking to deplete your bank account. He is usually seeking validation, support and a path to feeling the way he felt before you let him down." Seth has hit it on the spot about customer service. When the complaint about Singtel 3G coverage went viral , Singtel went the traditional method of addressing the complaint with facts. This of course didn't work. The c

Ok.. Windows 8 just launched.  Steve Ballmer must be really excited. Maybe as excite as selling Windows1.0. And wow, Windows1.0 even had a clock!

Josephine Teo, Minister of State, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Transport, recently caused a ruckus on  the online community on her comments about OCBC Bank giving PSLE leave. Apparently both the minister and netizens may have misunderstood OCBC's intention. An insider from OCBC Bank clarified that OCBC Bank is not giving its employees additional leave. The new PSLE leave scheme simply allows the bank employee to bring forward unconsumed leave to the following year that employees can take if their kid is sitting for PSLE. This program is part of their Care initiative which the bank would like to bring to its employees and hopefully that gets reflected on employees' relations to bank's customers. Josephine Teo, however, wrote that her immediate reaction was "over-the-top". Wrote Ms Josephine Teo , "... The bank may have been well-intentioned when introducing such leave. But they may not have realized that this feeds into fears of parents, and

What is the benefit of liking a Facebook Page? Facebook Fans of the respective pages will enjoy the discount when they join the respective FanClub Exclusive powered by PayPal. All the fan need to do is register their mobile number and like the selected page. Upon payment, fans just need to give their mobile number to the cashier. Pay with cash, card or with PayPal. To learn more about FanClub exclusives, visit http://FanClub.sg . For merchants, are you looking for a solution where you can convert more customers into Fans? Or recognise your Facebook Fans in the physical outlet so you can reward them for being a fan? In return, you get free word of mouth marketing and sponsored stories from the payment sponsor. In this case here, it will be PayPal. Launching a FanClub also allows you as a merchant to identify returning fans and even reward them with exclusive benefits via evouchers which only these fans will get. For a demo meeting, please email aaron(at)taggo(dot)me

Channel NewsAsia Get Real team probably thought they had the exclusive scoop when sex blogger Alvin Tan almost agreed to appear on their "investigative" program. Only problem was that the Channel NewsAsia Get Real team was sort of asking for free sex which didn't go down well with Alvin. Wrote Alvin Tan on his Facebook profile , " I was in talks with Channel News Asia to film an episode of Get Real, a documentary depicting real-life social events. Filming will take place over a span of several days, and we are expected to act as well as use our own personal contacts of people who propositioned us for sex to set up real-life meetings with said people. In addition, we are expected to personally take on tremendous legal risks in performing unauthorised filming; they were planning to wire our shirts up with microphones and hidden cameras to capture people who aren't even aware that they're being recorded. In exchange, Channel News Asia was prepared to re

Popular radio personality and funny man, Joe Augustin, was today served a lawyer's letter over a joke. Although Joe has taken to his Facebook Page to explain the situation, he has requested that "And please under NO circumstances, try and guess in comments section below who this allegedly aggrieved party may be." Wrote Joe Augustin , "..One of my jokes (yes, JOKES) has resulted in a lawyer's letter being sent to me threatening that their instructions are to "proceed immediately to prosecute" their clients claims against me unless I complied with their demands by the end of business today. Significantly, this letter arrived this afternoon while I was sleeping.  ...But in the very final paragraph of their letter, they still expressly reserved "the right to seek substantial damages from me for defamation" amongst all other rights. I am no lawyer, but I understand this to mean - We judge you have wronged us by our interpretation of the l

Singtel is trying its best to salvage its brand since a user complaint went viral on Facebook. The telco has since introduced a Facebook app to allow Singtel users to report outages in their network. Yet Singtel users are still complaining about the telco's bad 3G coverage. Why are Singtel users seeing red? The biggest contributor would be its false reasoning in explaining why they need to reduce the 3G data cap. When Singtel announced that it was reducing the 3G data cap, it said in their Facebook Post , " The tiered price plans allow a more balanced and fair data distribution, ensuring that everyone enjoys a faster and better mobile experience". Yet, in its recent post to cool hot tempers, Singtel now says "We are adding more than 100 new base station sites islandwide before the end of this year to boost capacity and further enhance coverage." This doesn't make sense. If the reduced data cap was meant to ensure  everyone enjoys a faster a

The digitalisation of photos have made it easy to cut and past photos and post them as yours without the proper attribution or permission. As such, when The Real Singapore blog posted a photo of a girl to quote that she had self esteem issues because of down syndrome on their Facebook Page, the real mother of the girl complained that the photo was taken without authorization and that her daughter did not suffer any self esteem issues.  "That is utter bullshit. Nadine has no such negative concepts about herself, and I don't know who this Sara is - we know everyone who knows Nadine," wrote Catherine Ling , mother of Nadine.  Catherine is also the popular food blogger for Camemberu .  What did The Real Singapore do when comments on page told them they were misusing the photo? Like most real media, they deleted the comment like it never existed and even ban the commentators.  Wrote Samantha De Silva on her Facebook note, "TRS is now banning users who

Say good bye to email services from Pacific Internet aka PacNet. Those who are still subscribing  @pacific.net.sg, you have to wonder why though, will not be able to receive or sent email from their PacNet account from 01 Dec 2012. This is as PacNet has announced that they will discontinue the email services to subscribers recently.

How costly is it to repair a Epson printer? According to news report coming out from Malaysia, the Health Ministry paid RM53,325 to repair the Epson printer. This repair bill was highlighted in the recently released Malaysia's Accountant General Audit report. The original cost of the printer? RM738. Image from  https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=121920174626809&id=330805745649

A Singtel user, frustrated with the telco's slow mobile data network, shared his disappointment on Singtel's Facebook Page which saw close to 10,000+ likes and 800+ comments in less than 24 hours. Wrote John Lee on Singtel Facebook Page, "Dear singtel all my friends are complaining about your network. How could you setup a 4G network where your 3G suck big time and you want to lower our data plan but still charge us the same price and yet we still get many drop call and slow network. You guys are taking our money but not giving us the service so here I'm complaining right at your face and wait for your feedback.. ." Singtel Facebook administrators have been trying to cool the angry Facebook mob, but to no avail. Wrote one of Singtel Facebook administrators, "We hear you. We would like to assure you that SingTel is committed to providing high-quality and consistent 3G and 4G mobile coverage to its customers. There are various factors that affect co

All it took was a few wall posts about a void deck Malay wedding being a tad noisy to have lead to the one of the hottest discussion on Facebook especially around the Singapore community. There is also a hashtag dedicated to Amy Cheong on Twitter which isn't really kind to here. So what can we learn here? 1. Privacy on Facebook is a oxymoron. Anybody who thinks that you have privacy on Facebook and whatever comments you can make because they are just for friends only, please think again. All you need is one of these friends to do a screenshot, share it on his/her networks which is opened to public and your comments are no longer private. If you really want to rant, get a dairy. Locked it in a vault and throw away the key. Otherwise, burn the dairy after the year. Remember, walls have ears. In Facebook terminology, walls can be shared, liked and comment, spreading at the speed of an electron. Even the Prime Minister of Singapore has commented on the incident. 2. I

Nothing beats fire fighting on Facebook on a Monday morning for NTUC Membership had to deal with the fallout over a staff's alleged racist comments about Malay weddings held at void decks. Though the Facebook user has already made her Facebook Profile private, a screenshot was tagged to NTUC Membership Facebook Page from a fan. The tagged photo generated 5,616 likes, 2,063 comments and 278 shares as of the posting of this blog. Click on photo to see the rest of the comments. Comments on the photo range from calls to withdraw NTUC membership to questioning the absurdity of how a wedding, even for one held at a void deck can only cost SGD50. Cool heads have also called for refraining from "making nasty comments" about Amy Cheong's race but to focus on the above post it self. NTUC Membership has since made a status update about the remarks. Wrote NTUC Membership , "This matter is being investigated and we will have a report in due course. This is a s

After an incident where a community manager for Singtel Facebook Page was verbally abused, Singtel has announced its Facebook House Rules to maintain order on the Page. Wrote Singtel As a host of this page, SingTel takes pride in keeping the conversations fair and decent for all. We have engaged a team of trained, empowered, and dedicated Customer Care service officers to provide assistance in queries on the Facebook page, working alongside our Community Managers.   Your comments are strongly encouraged and welcomed; be it positive or negative, and will not be deleted as long as the content does not breach the following points: Abusive, defamatory or obscene Violates copyright or intellectual property Condones or promotes illegal activity Fraudulent, deceptive or misleading Off-topic Sexual or offensive graphically or in tone Personal attacks, vulgarity, racism, or hateful in language targeting religion, gender, nationality, or political beliefs Deliberate disruption o