Lead by Example

After I read a column in our local tabloid, The Sun, I decided to write a complaint letter to the CEO that the columnist had mentioned, which he said is also his close friend. This is because, he quoted, both of them praised Amazon’s high quality on customer service.

I half expected I would get any reply from this CEO from a leading online recruitment company in this region, when I know usually one’s high approval on something might not necessary apply to his own organization, especially when we already have some awful experience dealing with them, which further leaves me with no illusion.  

Lead by example? Talk the walk or walk the talk?

This, is how the corresponding letter looks like:

DISSATISFACTION OVER SERVICES PROVIDED BY X COMPANY

FingerTec Worldwide has been X’s client for many years and until now, we are still engaging with your services to recruit suitable personnel for our business. Deemed as one of the leading Internet Recruitment websites in the Asia-Pacific with 11 millions jobseekers available, it is in my opinion that X does not reach my expectations. Please let me elaborate on that point.

The Company has been looking for R&D personnel candidates for more than a year without many applicants or much success. The scarce candidates who applied for the positions were not reliable candidates and most of them failed to turn up even though the interviews had been agreed and scheduled beforehand. The problem is, we are not looking for high-level skillful employee to fulfill our requirements; we do welcome fresh graduates. Nevertheless, even though this is a simple requirement, X fails to provide us quality candidates for consideration.

I do understand that X does not guarantee suitable applicants, but X’s ignorance to the fact that your services provided yield negative results even after a long period of time is appalling. As a responsible company, you should be concerned with this trend and have the courtesy to put in more effort to ensure success. Unfortunately this effort is in vain when it comes to X.

We are your paying customers and we pay to get your services. The resources that we have spent should result in the services we requested. This is a simple economical concept understood by even the simplest layman. If your services fail to fulfill our requirements, you shouldn’t accept future orders or at least provide us some form of compensation to remedy our losses. I look forward to getting a reply from X regarding this matter, and will appreciate your prompt cooperation in dealing with this issue.

"My mom asked me to walk a straight line"

I recalled a very minor incident that happened two years ago when a manager from this particular company called to demand payment on an “arrear” of less than USD50, which had been long overdue, according to him. My HR Manager argued that we paid cash in advance to get their services, so how could we still owe them money? And our system showed no such record. Even though this untraceable “debt” is due to their own mistake, they were steadfast and insisted we cleared the old “debt” in order for them to process our new ad placement. In short, the whole episode did not look the slightest like Amazon.  I wonder how this CEO said he valued Amazon’s service quality as high?

So, my complaint letter went down the drain without any reply, which is not unexpected.

That’s why I believe LinkedIn, Facebook and some other online platforms closing in from different angles to grab the online recruitment businesses in this region will not meet much resistance.