I switched my mobile phone provider to DIGI a couple of months ago. Yesterday, I received a call from somebody claiming to be from MAXIS, let me just call him Mr. A. The conversation went like this:

Ring..ring..

Me : Hello..

Mr. A : Is that Ms. Tan Yek Nee?

Me : Yes.. who is this?

Mr. A : I am calling from MAXIS and would like to introduce a new package for you. (1st rule broken, didn’t introduce himself ie his name and didn’t ask if I was free to talk?)

Me : What package?

Mr. A : Are you under any contract with DIGI?

Me : What contract are you talking about?

Mr. A : I mean..errr.. did DIGI give you any free phone and you are contracted to keep the DIGI line for a certain period of time?

Me : No, I am not under any contract.

Mr. A : That’s good. You see, from your bill, we can see that your calls are made less than RM30 per month and you are taking the RM50 per month from DIGI.

Me : Wait a minute. How would you have access to my bill? (2nd rule broken : He should have asked me how much I spent on calls, rather than telling me how much money I spent even if he did know. He “leaked” out the information that he has access to my bills).

Mr. A : I can see that even though you made calls for less than RM30, but you are paying RM50. You see, MAXIS has got a RM30 per month package, very attractive one.

Me : DIGI also has RM30 package, I am thinking of changing to that package.

Mr. A : Aiyak.. DIGI RM30 package calls are more expensive. Per call they charge you 20 sen whereas in MAXIS, we only charge you 18 sen if you made calls from MAXIS-MAXIS. I can see that most of your calls are made to a MAXIS line. You can save a lot of money one. (I almost fell off the chair, he was literally ”reading” my phone bill). 

Me : Wait, wait.. do you know the reason why I changed to DIGI, that’s because of MAXIS poor service! I can list down the 101 poor service but it will take a lot of your time. 18 sen or 20 sen per call does not make any difference to me, but good quality and service make a HUGE difference! (3rd rule broken : In the beginning of our conversation, he never bother to find out why I switched to DIGI)

Mr. A : Oh like that ah.. If like that, then never mind.. Thank you ah.. (he hung up the phone abruptly)

What tickled me was that for the last 1 year, I was using MAXIS RM80 package and calls made were often less than RM30, why didn’t they offer me the RM30 package or their RM50 to “save” my money? By the way, I absolutely think that MAXIS should train their tele-marketing staff some basic marketing skills. Be interested, not interesting in your potential prospect. I have been patient with Mr. A. Most people would have put down the phone from the moment he said he was offering some package.

I blog earlier about my dilemma whether to get an Acoustic Classical Piano or a Digital Piano. After much deliberation and consideration and weighing all the pros and cons, we got a Piano, a brand new Yamaha model JU109! Shopping for a musical instrument had been quite a hassle. A lot of parents I know actually bought a high-end model and the piano ends up a white elephant in the house when the child gave up the piano lesson.

First decision to be made is to buy either an acoustic classic Piano or digital one. I decided to get a Piano because the kids will eventually outgrown their music lesson (which use Electone/Organ/Keyboard) and continue with their piano lesson. When they start Piano lesson eventually I would still have to get them a classic Piano. No doubt they can use the digital piano, the keys on the digital piano are so much lighter and use less pressure and easier to play. However, during the accessment, classic Piano will be used and the child might not get used to the keys. At first, I thought that Piano keys will be a bit too hard for Little J’s little fingers. After practising for a few days, he is now comfortable with the keys. In fact, he practises 3 times a day now compare to when he was using keyboard…ha! It is really a good invesment. The only “disadvantage” of a piano is that you have to tune it twice a year and each tuning fee costs about RM100 or more whereas digital piano does not need tuning at all.

Once we decided to get piano, the next dilemma was to get either a brand new one or a second-hand recon model. Brand new is of course more expensive but if you opt for a cheaper second-hand recon model, make sure you get a reputable brand from an authorised agent. If you are lucky, you will get a problem-free recon model. Brand new would have better resale value, in case the kids give up the lesson, which I hope they won’t. We also have to consider the size of the piano due to limited space at our living room. We had too many partitions and compartments when we renovated the house and did not consider to reserve a space for piano then. The size of Model JU109, a relatively smaller model, suits our living room excellently.

Both Js are happy with the new piano and it really motivates them to practise more. Kids happy, parents also happy.. yay!