Dear BTL/DigiCell
March 30, 2015
Re: DigiCell text to customers:
“As of April 7th, BTL will NO LONGER correct TopUP error. Kindly encourage your customers to write down the correct number before sending credits.”
Is this legal? Or is this theft? In essence, this new policy means that:
1. The clients who gives a wrong number is out of luck once the credit ($$$) is sent
2. The vendor is out of pocket if he/she sends credit ($$$) to a wrong number
To implement your company’s new policy, vendors are to instruct customers on writing the correct phone number legibly. Belize Bank did this last year with deposit and withdraw slips and trained us all to ‘stay in the spaces’. But if Belize Bank send the money to someone else’s account, the error is reversible. Should money transferred in error remain in the wrong account, it is theft. AND furthermore, the bank teller is NOT responsible for the loss.
I have sold DigiCell credit for over five (5) years via a mobile phone terminal. I’ve made mistakes transferring credit and they have usually been able to be reversed; with much gratitude from both myself and my customers. I inquired at my local BTL office if I could sell ‘scratch cards’ so any mistakes made after April 7th would be that of the purchaser, not the vendor. I’m told that DigiCell’s plan is to eliminate scratch cards and in-store machines to only sell TopUp credit via mobile terminal only. So no matter what, the vender would lose the commission income if/when a mistake is made. AND possibly lose a customer who didn’t get the credit as intended. Customer loyalty comes from customer support, even if vendors aren’t supported.
If I can’t support my customers, because I can’t absorb the financial loss from my mistakes, your company will likely lose business in the long run – like when DigiCell cancelled international calling on Promotional Credits. It took four months for DigiCell to recognize the loss of profit and customers and finally reverse that decision. So in the next four month, how many vendors will stop selling DigiCell credits for this reason? How far will DigiCell customers have to go to purchase credits from vendors who wish to risk their income?
As I understand it, the reasons behind this policy/plan are two-fold:
1. No other phone service in Central America reverses credit transfers (SMART does!)
2. It is costing too much money
How is it costing DigiCell money to reverse the error and send the dollars of credit to the correct number? It’s the same money! AND the vendor already has to cover the dollar difference if someone has used some of the credit prior to reversal. Agreed it does require a staff member to conduct the correction, but isn’t it worth it to have happy clients and happy staff?
Please re-think this new plan. Please, just provide a service that can be relied upon and supported by policy and people.
Sincerely,
Dianne Lawrence, aka Quicksilver
DigiCell TopUP Vendor
