Behind the not-so-awesome customer experience at Osome

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Hi there,

My laptop screen has recently started flickering and even went blank a couple of times. I frantically tried to reach the laptop company’s customer care service, but their delayed response and inability to fix the problem remotely irked me.

I eventually found out that the delay in their responses was because their technician team was understaffed.

Ironically, my colleague Candice and I were working on a story about Osome, an online accounting firm that was feeling the heat from customers who left reviews of “nightmare” experiences. So in our first Big Story, we pull back the curtains to understand the reasons for those customer complaints.

The biggest cause for the flack seems to be the exit of several key employees from the accounting team, who left the Singapore-based firm from December 2022 to mid-2023.

The company also laid off employees at the end of last year in an attempt to break even.

Speaking of job losses, there is a rising fear of how many jobs AI might replace. But the Sea-Lion large language model, developed by the non-profit organization AI Singapore, looks to foster jobs in the startups and companies that use it. One key reason the LLM was developed is to cater to the languages and nuances of Southeast Asia, as most AI developed by the West and China are prone to biases, the company said.

Finally, in Making Waves, my colleague Melissa looks at how the Philippine-based healthtech firm KonsultaMD has managed to become a leader in the space by tapping an “unfair advantage.”

But first, our Big Stories!

P.S. The team will be taking a short break next week for the Lunar New Year. But fear not, we’ll be back in your inbox on February 20, 2024.

— Collin

THE BIG STORY

1️⃣ Osome faces heat from customers following staff exits, layoffs

Image credit: Made by Tech in Asia using Midjourney

MAKING WAVES

NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW

FYI