Try holistic approach, TNB

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I WOULD like to suggest that Tenaga Nasional Bhd use a different approach to collect payments other than cutting supply to customers who haven’t paid their bills (“TNB strikes” – Sunday Star, July 4).

Cutting supply has three very damaging drawbacks that any company should avoid – (1) it angers the customer; (2) it reduces the chances of receiving payment because an angry customer will find a way to retaliate; and (3) if the company is not able to carry out its threat of cutting supply to defaulting customers for any reason, it will register an even greater default rate.

And if the trend continues, even a mighty company will eventually be in trouble.

We learn in business school that one of the main reasons companies cannot collect payment on time is wrong billing. This would certainly appear to be the case with Tenaga.

We have read reports of customers being double billed, and I am inclined to think that the lack of manpower does not allow Tenaga to read meters every month and so customers are billed for two or three months at a time.

The much higher bill amount will certainly make it difficult for customers to pay on time.

Tenaga should review its billing procedures and ensure customers are billed regularly and only for the amount of electricity used.

It should also consider how its cost-cutting measures have prevented the company from collecting the due payments on time. The human touch is essential and cannot be substituted by even the most sophisticated computerised system.

Any reasonable customer will pay for what is used, and the majority of customers are quite reasonable.

Big companies are the blueprint for smaller ones, and if they enact policies that are good for now but damaging in the long run, smaller companies will suffer too and will eventually be wiped out, just like Tenaga will cut supply to errant customers.

It is always in the interest of a company to educate both its staff and customers. Yet, while companies do spend to train their staff, they completely disregard the need to teach their customers the value of their products or services, and the necessity to make prompt payment so that there may not be any interruption in the ability of the company to provide the service, and the customer to enjoy it.

Finally, my opinion is that a landlord is liable to pay the electricity bill run up by his tenant, and Tenaga should not fall for such excuses that the electricity was not actually used by the account holder.

A landlord collects rent, and also a utility deposit, sometimes for a few months in advance, and therefore is responsible for the behaviour of the tenant while the tenant occupies his premises.

To say that the tenant has left without settling the electricity bill shows lack of maturity on the part of the landlord. And if Tenaga does not require the landlord to settle the bill, it shows the company’s inability to enforce the law.

MARISA DEMORI,

Ipoh.

PuTERAKL says “Hehehe…jawab jangan tak jawab TNB “

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