I've always thought that Digi was a pretty savvy company. Despite its lingering reputation for terrible voice reception and data connectivity, it has still managed to attract and retain a substantial market share of subscribers against superior competitors like Maxis and Celcom with lower prices and attractive deals.
However, having said that, my personal opinion of them changed somewhat today. This was not because of terrible reception, or no data coverage, or a multitude of other f**k ups that I've personally experienced before. Sure, I've cursed and sworn at them in the past, but never have I been so baffled by ineptitude on their part before.
I openly admit that after being a Maxis subscriber since I was in my late teens, the initial reason for my switch over to Digi was mainly because I was utterly fed up of Maxis charging me for things I did not subscribe to. I'm big on loyalty and I'm a creature of habit. If you treat me right, as a customer, I'll never go anywhere else.
So today I get a call from a Digi telemarketer (lets call him Mr Genius), asking me to update my RM48 per month plan (with 1GB data, no free calls/texts) to the latest RM58 plan with 2GB data and 200 mins of free calls and 200 free smses (both of these to Digi numbers ONLY). Without bothering to find out what I wanted or didn't want out of my mobile plan, he jumped straight in to the features of the new plan and how he thought it would benefit me.
Now I'd seen this plan before on their website, and had toyed with the idea of upgrading. However, as I didn't (and still don't) have plans to update my phone just yet, the idea of being under contract for another year just wasn't very appealing at the time. But I certainly was interested at that point. Especially when Mr Genius said that if I decided to upgrade my phone with them during the contract period, they would immediately cancel the current contract without any penalty and start the new one right away.
Anyhow, before I committed myself, I wanted to find out if I'd end up paying more for services that I wouldn't use. It's a mistake that I've often made in the past. All I was interested in were the 200 minutes of free calls and 200 free texts. I don't usually use much data on the go, and have only exceeded my 1GB's worth of data twice in my entire tenure with Digi. Once was when I was moving houses, and did not have any internet access at home for the entire month, and the second time when a background app on my phone had downloaded a whole heap of stuff without my knowledge. Both times happened within the last 2-3 days of my billng cycle, so it wasn't a big deal anyway.
So I asked Mr Genius how much extra I'd normally pay for calls and texts. After much hemming and hawing, obvious attempts to avoid going thtrough the numbers with me, he reluctantly agreed to do the calculation for ONLY my latest bill (I'd actually asked for the figures from the last 3 months of bills).
After he did the calculation, he kept emphasizing that the extra amount I paid last month was RM13.20, and the new plan was only RM10 extra. After several repeats of RM13.20, I then insisted that he specifically break down the individual figures for me between Digi and Non-Digi numbers. Because if the free calls and smses were only for Digi numbers, I'd really only benefit if I were to spend more than that calling and texting Digi numbers.
The final numbers? Out of the RM13.20 that he kept harping on about, I was charged RM5.22 and RM4.20 in Non-Digi calls and texts respectively, so this amount doesn't count. RM1.39 was charged for an international call. Then finally, the numbers I was waiting for, I had paid RM2.21 and a whopping RM0.18 in Digi to Digi calls and texts respectively.
And the tone of his voice in which he breezed past those last 2 amounts? I'll lay down some good money on the fact that he'd given up on signing me up.
In other words, I would have paid an extra RM10 to save myself RM 2.39 if I signed up for this extra package. I'm not saying that this situation will be the same for everybody out there who's reading through this in the hopes that it will help them decide whether to subscribe with Digi or not. In fact, it really is a pretty sweet deal if your usage habits swing that way.
Hmmm, maybe he really should have offered to check my last 3 months worth of statements.
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