Blue Bird service
A few minutes after arriving home from shopping I realized that I had left my yellow Nokia 5100 cell phone in a Timor Blue Bird taxi on Aug. 31 (I forgot the license plate number).
At 6:30 p.m., I contacted their customer response service at 7941245 and talked to Ibu Ari who promised to call me back in an hour. However, I had to call back after waiting for two hours, and to my disappointment, nobody answered my call. I tried again through the operator, and after five minutes I managed to talk with Ibu. Nadya (?), who again promised to call me back, saying that the person in charge had just gone out. I phoned back half an hour later and an Ibu Rosa said that the person in charge was having dinner. When I said that I could not wait and wait as I just wanted to know the whereabouts of my cell phone, she seemed slightly annoyed.
She then suddenly turned friendly and promised to call me back when she heard me explain the whole thing in English (it turns out that Indonesian customers are less appreciated by Blue Bird). A few minutes later, Mr. Bayu called me, saying it was highly unlikely that I would get my phone back as I didn't notice the plate number and the driver could not have seen the cell phone on the back seat. (In my opinion, the driver must have seen the cell phone because to get to the main road the driver had to back up).
The next day, Sept. 1, 2001 Mr. Bayu left me a message saying that my phone could not be found. Feeling anxious, I called back on Sept. 3, and, to my despair, I had to go through a similar experience.
However, I was startled to read a letter in The Jakarta Post on Sept. 3, written by Mr. Adrian of Blue Bird's public relations department on "Useful tips for taking a taxi".
Mr. Adrian didn't give any tips at all about what a passenger, who did not remember a taxi's plate number, should do if he/she leaves her/his belongings in a taxi or how the company handles such problems.
Perhaps, Blue Bird's policy is to give good service (returning items left behind) to foreign passengers only or Blue Bird is only well-known by its name not by its service and employees. A big name does not necessarily guarantee good service.
ATUN H.
Jakarta