TMnet

Background of TMnet:
Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) is a leading regional information and communications group, which offers a comprehensive range of communication services and solutions in fixed-line, mobile, data and broadband. The year 1995 was considered the beginning of the Internet age in Malaysia. The growth in the number of Internet hosts in Malaysia began around 1996. According to the first Malaysian Internet survey conducted from October to November 1995 by MIMOS and Beta Interactive Services, one out of every thousand Malaysians had access to the Internet (20,000 Internet users out of a population of 20 million).

TM tries to deliver value to its stakeholders in a highly competitive environment. The Group places emphasis on continuing customer service quality enhancements and innovations. To do so Streamyx which is a broadband internet service offered by TM Net Sdn. Bhd., a subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia Berhad is introduced. Most Malaysian broadband users subscribe to Streamyx due to the lack of alternative services from other Malaysian internet service providers, like Jaring, NasionCom and TIME dotNet. Broadband services rolled out by these companies have limited service coverage, because the last mile connections are monopolised by Telekom Malaysia

In a survey conducted by the Energy, Communications and Multimedia Ministry, it was reported that 7 % of the population was registered as Internet subscribers compared to only 2.6% in the previous year. The Internet penetration is still low at less than 10 percent of the population. According to International Data Corporation (IDC) Malaysia, the number is estimated to grow to 3.91 million in 2004. It is hard to determine an actual figure of online users in Malaysia, as some of the online users are not registered as Internet subscribers. They assess the Internet at their workplace or through Internet cafés.

Mission:
We will continue to provide and a ray of online and e-commerce applications to complement the access service to ensure the Internet becomes the major communication tool of the future. Our content aggregation effort via www.bluehyppo.com will provide one stop integrated Internet Solution to recall TMnet pledge to bring the Internet in the reach of Malaysia

Vision:
TMnet is committed to bringing the Internet to all Malaysians be it for home or business. TMnet aims to make the world accessible to all through the technologies we provide. TMnet will lead the way in become the country main Total Solutions Provider with a commitment focused on providing Quality Service that will transform the nation into a techno-centric population while promoting the development destination on the Global Information Superhighway

SWOT ANALYSIS:
Strength
• TMnet monopolize the Internet Provider Market in Malaysia
• TMnet supported by Malaysia Government
• Implement WIMAX ( Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) 2008 in Malaysia)

Weakness
• Low customer satisfaction regarding their Customer Services
• Poor Internet connections

Opportunity
• 9th Malaysia Plan- Implement Smart School Threats
• Competitors such as Maxis and Digi Company

Issue Faces by TMNET
a) Low Customer Satisfaction
All this while, customers had been unsatisfied with the services provided by TMnet as it is claimed that it’s not money worth. Criticisms such as slow connections as well as frequent disconnections are often heard from the users. Help lines are mostly put up for the sake of showing and assistances are hardly useful as problems are mostly unidentified.
Other than the connection problem, it is claimed that customer services are not up to the standards and some services are faster than approaching the problems e.g. billing.

b) Response to Government Calling
Goals set for the future such as the Smart school is the project to get the country’s secondary schools equipped with computers. Currently, 46% of the country's secondary schools are equipped with computers. However, according to a survey conducted by the National Teachers Association, only 30% of the 250,000 teachers in Malaysia use computers. Private companies like Sun Microsystems have helped by donating RM2 million worth of its office productivity software to 700 schools in the state of Selangor to boost the IT literacy rate among students. These are good initiatives for Malaysia as educating the younger generation helps the country to build IT based communities.

c) Criticism on Blogging Sites
Due to the negative comments on Streamyx, it cause a much arouse in criticism not on the newspaper itself but including the Blogging sites. All the comments are free flow contribution from users or non users and this may seriously cause bad reputation towards the company. This might also cost future business opportunity for TMnet as most third parties rely on that information to understand the capability and potential to make plans or decisions.

Goals and Objectives of PR Consultant of TMNET
a) Improve the relationship between TMnet and their customers.
b) Help TMnet to work more efficient towards government current plans.
c) To gain better reputations among the community in Malaysia

ISSUE 1: Low Customer Satisfaction
OBJECTIVE
Improve the relationship between TMnet and their customers.

Strategy 1: Motivate employees working attitude through organizing functions.
It is important for a company to maintain employee goodwill. Variety of functions can let employees feel that their company strives to maintain their goodwill. Therefore, through these functions, staffs in TMnet’s will work more ambitious for TMnet in the future.

Public:
Our public here will focus on employees. It is an internal public relation of a company.

Tactics
 In every six month, every company of TMnet need to select one of the most outstanding employees presented with a cash bonus of RM500 given as a motivation factor

- Incentives are likely to encourage employees to perform better and by having better performance, the companies will benefits.

 Every year, each company will organized a vacation trip for the staffs that have working experience more than two years in TMnet.

- 20% of the trip expenses will be covered by the company; through this the employees will be content to work with TMnet for a longer period as such opportunities are rare.

 During Christmas season, every company will be holding a grand ball where all of the employees are welcome.

- All the expenses of the grand ball will also covered by the company. It is a face-to-face communication during this grand ball and it maintain communication links with leaders and employees to have a closer relationship.

Strategy 2: Train the employees to improve their technical capabilities and service attitude.
Everybody should improve themselves trough learning continually. Today, knowledge is often a company’s biggest asset. Services and quality are more important than ever. Therefore, TMnet’s employees need to be train in order to gain more knowledge of technology and service.

Public:
Our public of this strategy will also focus on employees.

Tactics
 For every three months, every company will organize employee’s training lasting for a week.

- This training will focuses on the employee’s mentality and service quality. The sales department managers will be the mentor in these training.
 Every year, one or two technician from every company will be sent to Japan or America for Internet Technical training.

- The expenses of the training will be supported by the company. Japan and America are the well-known high-technology countries in the world. Hence, after technicians studied from Japan and America, they will bring more and more benefits to TMnet and improve the technical of TMnet year by year.

Strategy 3: Provide different ways of solving uncertainties face by customers.
We provide different ways for customers to solve their problem more conveniently. At the same time, customers can see how TMnet care about them through these ways. As a result, customers will more and more satisfied by TMnet in the future.

Public:
The public of strategy 3 will focus on customers.

Tactics
 Every Employee will be given a name tag for the purpose of providing personal information for customer’s future references.

- Every staffs should put on the name tag. On the name tag, it will have the name of the staff, the position of the staff, and the staff number. For example, if a customer wants to praise or complain a particular employee, he/she can mark down the employee name and number for future references.

 Every service department should provide opinion box and opinion slip for customer to voice out their opinions.

- Customers can fill in the opinion slip, after that put it into the opinion box. Opinion box should be check everyday and those opinions will consist of positive or negative issues.

 Establish Complain Centers, equipped with specialized personal to solve complains from website, telephone and opinion box. Enquiry should be settled within 24hours, however, if it is a complex situation it will take up to 7 working days.

 Complain center will held performance evaluation every month, employees who were complained or those who did not solve complains, will be punished appropriately.

- For example, if a staff who is complained by the customers or did not solve complains properly, appropriate measures will be taken such as deduction of salary and is ineligible to take part in the outstanding employee program.

Issue 2: Response to Government Calling
OBJECTIVE
Help TMnet to work more efficiently towards government current plans.

Strategy 1: Introduce “Smart School” for the rural areas.
Education is vital in today’s society, and with the help of computers it will increase the benefits. Therefore it will be a crucial step for schools in the rural sector to benefits from technology.

Public:
The public in this strategy will be focusing on Government and Rural community

Tactics:
• Provide Internet availability to rural schools in order to broaden their knowledge.

- According to TMnet’s vision where it stated ‘to bring Internet to all Malaysians be it for homes or business’, it is then essential for TMnet not to neglect the rural sectors by providing Internet services to those part of community as this is an opportunity for the people to gain knowledge and being able to contribute to the society in the near future.

• Partner with the Government to provide IT courses for the rural students in order to prepare them for a brighter future.

- As TMnet provides the connections into those sectors with the support of the government, both TMnet and the government may help to provide IT courses. Through this it will help the government to achieve their goals and benefits the rural community. Let’s not be bias on the thinking that talented people are only available within urban sector. There might be talented people within the rural sector as well.

• Communicate with the local parents to share the positive impact of Internet for their children.

- By reaching out to the parents regarding those changes will be crucial as parents will be concern regarding moral issues and how it might pollute the young minds. Therefore TMnet should give talks among the rural community on how important Internet is towards the students as it is an information highway and is beneficial. Although the negative impact of the technology exists, however, parents are able to prevent it by filtering websites and make it safe for their children to access the Internet. When this matter is cleared, it will then encourage the parents thus motivates their children to accept the change. Grunig’s two-way symmetric model is practice here where there is mutual understanding and a balanced communication.
Strategy 2: Strive for more committed and ambitious employees to achieve goals more efficiently.
By having more committed and ambitious employees will be beneficial as it helps the company to be more innovative and diverse.

Public:
The public focus on this strategy will be on Community and Media.

Tactics:
• Advertise through media such as newspaper, television, radio and Internet to recruit promising talents among the community.

- By having this approach, it will help to create a more diverse TMnet company where more ideas are being contributed and higher competitions arise in order to be more innovative for the sake of the Malaysia community as a whole.

• Provide talk programs in universities in order to pursue student to join TMnet’s team after graduation.

- The talk programs help to provide options for the students after graduation. This will eventually triggers their mind in deciding for their future ahead. This also shows the sincerity of the TMnet in recruiting locals and foreign students as important assets to the company in order to provide better services to the community of Malaysia.

Issue 3: Criticism on Blogging Sites
OBJECTIVE
Gain better reputation among the community

Strategy 1: Building good media relationship between the community and the company.
By having good relationship will makes the business smoother and convenient. Media is a powerful tool where it brings positive and negative impacts.

Public:
The public being focus on this strategy will be Media and Community

Tactics:
• Have the CEO of TMnet to attend Radio talk shows to answer audience’s questions.

- The motive is to build a better relationship between the community and the company, by doing so it reduces the gap and conflicts. As the audiences are able to voice out directly to the CEO, this show the current issues facing by the company and measures will be taken to improve those areas. This action will demonstrate that TMnet cares for the community, not just blindly on profit maximization. It is a two step flow mass communication also known as agenda setting theory.

• Have Public Relation (PR) technician specifically log into the blogs within Malaysia; in order to clear the doubts face by the customers.

- Blog is referred as one of the online Consumer Generated Media (CGM); it has an impact on all facets of the corporation from reputation and sales to product marketing and market research. Bloggers represent an enormous cross section of consumers and business buyers who are listening to the recommendations, good or bad. PR technician are to help those customers to overcome the problem by paying attention to them and asking details through blogs. Eventually when things start to improve due to the assistance from the PR, Bloggers will comment on the good services provided and thus boosting the reputation of TMnet and also improve the relationship with the company.

• Have TMnet apologize through newspapers and blogs regarding unforeseen errors, which causes inconvenience to the community of Malaysia.

- Sometimes TMnet might take days to service certain errors and this might cause inconvenient which frustrates the customers. It will be wise to voice out their problem by apologizing through the Internet and newspapers as this will show their deepest regret. When customers are inform, they will be better off rather than not hearing anything from TMnet.

Evaluation

Basically from the report, after discussing on the issues and ways of strategy and tactics were used for achieving the goals and objective, it helps to clear several disputes between the company and the end users. By having implementing those being proposed, it will help to build up a better relationship among TMnet, its employees and the community. It helps employees to become more ambitious and committed and being more friendly and helpful towards customers. By building and maintaining a good reputation will eventually boost Malaysia in to a more diverse environment where more competitions are inputted which results in a more innovative company. It also helps to benefits the community by giving the best which is equally towards their payment (money worth). By gaining better reputation and employees who are happy to work with the company will impact future business opportunities thus secure TMnet.