Tag: customer service

NSO certificates, passport appointments, OEC made convenient with Pilipinas Teleserv

Posted on by jane

Getting birth, marriage, and death certificates has become that much easier these days with service companies that allow you to order these online. One service which I have been using for years when getting these types of certificates has been Pilipinas Teleserv. I’ve used them to order up birth certificates for everyone in my family several times. With 4 kids, we’ve had to present birth certificates when enrolling them in schools, for travel abroad, and for passport application.

The best experience I had with Pilipinas Teleserv was some years back when my passport and that of my 2 boys had to be renewed. Teleserv processed our information, picked up our passports, and assisted us at the DFA so efficiently that we were in and out in just 15 minutes tops!

Pilipinas Teleserv recently hosted a brunch for some bloggers with someone from the National Statistics Office (NSO) as resource person. We got to learn more about the OTHER services of Teleserv as well as ask questions of the NSO person.

Current services of Pilipinas Teleserv

NSO Certificates

NSO issues various certificates on security paper: birth certificate, death certificate, marriage certificate, and Certificate of No Marriage (CENOMAR). Their hotline is open 24/7, even on holidays. And their coverage is nationwide.

Birth certificate on NSO security paper

Process for getting an NSO certificate

There are more payment modes now, including BancNet ATMs, online banking facilities and credit cards via an online payment channel. Teleserv says the online payment facility is compliant with the PCI-DSS’ strict certifications to ensure it is safe and secure.

DFA Express Passport Delivery
Teleserv told me that because of the new ID process at the DFA, waiting time is longer than it used to be the last time I processed our passports. Nevertheless, they make the appointment process and delivery as convenient as possible for their clients. Here’s how:

POEA Overseas Exit Clearance (OEC)

Vacationing OFWs need an OEC to be able to return to their place of work. There’s no need now to travel all the way to POEA for this as it’s just a mouse click away. It’s processed and delivered to your doorstep. Just log on to www.oecdelivery.com.ph or call (02) 737-7777.

A few more things I learned from Pilipinas Teleserv

During the open forum, I learned a few more things from NSO and Teleserv:

* The official receipt that comes with the NSO certificate needs to be kept attached to the certificate. – Waah, I never knew that and always separated them from the certificates! This OR is proof that the certificate is authentic and is sometimes required for presentation by some foreign embassies.

* Their security paper changes color from time to time. NSO orders these in bulk in a certain color and pattern. When they change color/pattern, embassies are advised. So it’s possible that while my current NSO-certified certificates serve the purpose for schools and other requirements, I may need to order up for new ones in case the family travels and the embassy/ies require a more recent security paper.

You can find Pilipinas Teleserv on the following sites:

Websites:
www.teleserv.ph
www.citizenservices.com.ph

Telephone:
(02) 737-1111 (NSO inquiries)
(02) 737-1000 (DFA inquiries)
(02) 737-7777 (POEA inquiries)

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/citizenservices

Twitter:
www.twitter.com/teleserv_ph

My Yellow Cab epic fail dinner

Posted on by jane

(UPDATE: Yellow Cab responded proactively to my complaint and the store manager herself invited me and my family to another meal at their branch so that we would end up with a positive experience. And we did! Thank you, Yellow Cab. We still love you!)

There are nights when luck isn’t on your side and tonight I struck out on dinner. Rather, Yellow Cab struck out on us.
Since I only had 3 kids at home, we decided to treat ourselves to Yellow Cab pizza and baked potato wedges. To be fair, we love Yellow Cab and have not had any bad experience with them in the past.

But tonight went down as a true Murphy’s Law dinner.

I placed my order at 789-9999 and spoke with an Eric, who took my orders down: one 18″ pepperoni and mushroom pizza (I specified crisscut and Eric specifically told me it would be 32 crisscut slices) and an order of baked potato wedges. Total bill: P987.

When one of my boys called me to the dinner table, we excitedly opened up the pizza box and this was what we saw.

Pepperoni and mushroom – Yes
18″ pizza – No

At first I thought they just forgot to cut the pizza into crisscut but when I opened the box that was supposed to contain the baked potato wedges, this was what was inside:

They call it Charlie Chan Chicken Pasta

So I call the Yellow Cab hotline again to complain (the same Eric answered the phone). A while after he put down the phone, someone named Hatch called me apologizing about the misdelivery. But he insisted that the pizza was really ours, it was just not cut. He suggested that a rider would bring over our baked potato wedges and bring a pizza cutter to cut the sliced pizza into crisscuts. WHAAAAT?

Look, sliced or crisscut, it’s just a shape. I don’t like the idea of strangers coming into my home at night to what, cut a pizza up?

So I told Hatch no thanks, we’d eat the pizza the way it was. Hatch also said they’d be refunding me money representing a discount they are giving me for the inconvenience. My bill was to be P888 instead of P987.

We were a bit hungry already by then and I knew the pizza had gone cold so I agreed to just get the money back and get a fresh batch of the baked potato wedges in exchange for the pasta. But by the time I went down to tell our househelp that, their rider had already come by and got BOTH the pizza and pasta. He said both orders belonged to a condo nearby and his plan was to retrieve our orders from the condo and deliver what he retrieves to us.

Did he expect us to eat the pizza and potato wedges that some other people probably already opened up in their condo unit?

For a third time, I called the hotline and spoke with Hatch. Yes, he understood why I didn’t want to eat food that is no longer fresh. And yes, he’d send over an entirely fresh batch of both pizza and baked potato wedges.

Wait. wait, wait. Finally another rider came along (nope, he wasn’t the one who misdelivered. That guy went off-duty already, said this rider). We checked our orders at the gate. This time, they got it right. And I got P94 back as my discount for the inconvenience.

We finally sat down to dinner with our true order at around 9 pm already. And guess what. Good thing we did not settle by eating that first pizza because, as it turns out, our true order was a lot bigger than the first one delivered! Sus hindi pala 18″ yung unang pizza! It was not true after all that our pizza was not just cut crisscut style. It was really the WRONG pizza! Because here’s the right one:

Our real order: 18″ Crisscut pepperoni and mushrooms
Finally, THE baked potato wedges!

To be fair to Yellow Cab, your people on the phone were quite apologetic and understanding. But if you are to improve your service, allow me some suggestions in light of this incident:

1. Improve the dispatching procedure so mix-ups are reduced or better still, totally eliminated.
2. Before you tell us that the pizza was just not cut up crisscut style, make sure it is the same size as the pizza we ordered. What would have happened had we eaten the 1st pizza on your say-so, only to find out what was due us was a bigger pizza?
3. Never, ever let your riders take back misdelivered orders and expect us just to accept them. Once food is opened up by someone else, elsewhere, it should not be re-delivered to the right people. It behooves a true food company to order up a fresh batch for sanitation purposes.

I was assured that this incident would be elevated to the higher-ups of Yellow Cab. I really hope it gets to them so that this incident will never happen again. As for me, what was supposed to be my comfort food tonight unfortunately turned out to be a very stressful dinner.