Some Service

This evening saw us traipsing off to the wilds of Vivo City in search of the Starhub Service Centre therein. Why so? you may find yourself asking. After all, the centre by the same name at Clementi Mall is a lot closer, and, since we regularly do business of various sorts there, a whole lot more convenient. However, simply in asking the question you would be underestimating the endless capacity of Starhub as a 'service supplier' to make the customer work for them.

If you want to discontinue a service like, say, an extra set-top box, they don't come to you to take it away (like television rental companies in the very old days used to.) No, you have to take it yourselves, and not just anywhere: you need to find a service centre that actually provides the service of allowing you to return the box. And remember to take your passport and the latest bill with you to prove who you say you are. Oh, and all the various wires the box came with, which nobody on the customer service phone line will ever tell you to do, presumably because it's too much trouble to make life easy for customers, who should mysteriously know precisely what to do in such circumstances without being told.

Or could it be that companies like the above-named deliberately make it difficult for customers to curtail services in order to ensure the money keeps coming in? Should I really be that cynical? Surely not, when all of the customers pictured on the walls of the service centres are smiling so manically and reassuringly.