Provincial Mindset

Petronas is so damn ridiculous a lot of times. It's the biggest private company in Malaysia but it's being run like a highly inefficient government bureaucracy. Well, being one of the so-called "Government-Led Companies" (GLC) certainly contributes to its woeful management-style.

Now that I've been working at a Petronas petrol station for the past month I do have a few gripes when it comes to customer service and product delivery. Petrol and diesel deliveries are sometimes late, which lead to the station being dry. Petrol has to be delivered every day and diesel usually every other day (at a lesser load). The station is in the business of selling petrol and diesel, so if it's out of both, what more can it offer to the customers? Cigarette and junk food sales can only carry the station so far!

The reason that Petronas uses for late deliveries is that either it has not enough tankers at the regional depot to deliver the product or there is not enough petrol or diesel supply at the storage depot. It's a lame excuse to use for an international conglomerate like Petronas. It has be professional enough to use the latest inventory and logistical management tools to keep track and maximize the delivery efficiency of its products. In my case, the least it can do is add more tankers to the regional depot since not enough tankers being its most common excuse for late delivery.

Another example is today a customer called the station to ask about the Mesra card rewards system. He wanted to know how many Mesra points he currently has and he had tried calling the number on the back of the card but nobody answered the phone. I checked on the Mesra website, which required me to create a fake profile so I can log in, but the website kept giving me error messages. I later dug through the website's menu and by chance found a circular stating that the phone number on the back of the Mesra card is temporarily not active and customers should call the alternative numbers included in the memo. One would think that an announcement of this nature belongs on the homepage of the Mesra website in big block letters, but no. For me it's totally unprofessional and not customer-friendly at all. By the way the guy who called me about his Mesra points is not internet-savvy, and that was why I did the search for him. He was a bit puzzled when I told him to go online and try his luck there.

There are many more gripes about Petronas and I hope that Petronas is more sensitive to the needs of its dealers and customers. If nobody buys your products you wouldn't be where you are today.