Emperor

Yesterday, i was at a PC supplies store to change a Laptop screen protector that was of wrong size. The customer service officer was very reluctant to change the item without a receipt even thought their store bar-coded price tag is on it. After some strong "words of encouragement" base on logic. He said he will search for the record of the sale. 1 hour later, he found it and then change the product ot one of the correct dimension that i needed.

Compare this to:

I bought an item from k-mart in melbourne which was defective and the item was promptly refunded; with a smile and thank you.

Point is. Singapore people only know how to follow rules to the bone and not use logic and initiative. And companies do not treat customers with real respect and customers are the ones paying the money and deserves good service.

Theres this donut shop in SG that sell fantastic donuts but the service is painfully slow that they could easily sell more donuts and **** less people off if they use logic and initiative in serving customers. Likewise for alot of food shops that has an otherwise great product but close after 6 months.

Service people is SG really need some help.

lawreo

i guess with the enormous no. of food stalls in SG, there are many cases of popular ones treating customers like dirt, the kind of take-it-or-leave-it attitude because they have a lot of customers craving for their food.

there is this place called Botak Jones which serves nice western food. although the place is usually packed, i still find the service great. service ppl are plenty and friendly. food was served to me surprisely fast considering that the whole coffee shop was completely occupied, mostly waiting for their food. my experience with them has been fine and it is not surprising that they are opening a second branch liao. good for them.

Rumboo

^^ Botak Jones is an ang mo, yo!

They usually give good service as well as being nice customers. Again, culture lah. Not being French ang mo also helps too! j/k

lawreo

from what i know, only the boss is ang mo. the rest of his guys are locals. its pretty good how he educate his staffs. their service is really worth mentioning.

i think local bosses got to buck up man.

blackjack

think same goes to local customers also.

RX8ster

I'll like to share my experience with K-mart in Melbourne. I bought a tower fan when I was studying there and it came with a 2years warranty. After using it for 1 year 9mths, the fan went dead. I brought it down to K-mart and they did a search on their system to see if they have stock to replace my faulty fan. It was around mid-autumn at that time and winter wasn't too far away, so K-mart was stocking up on electric heaters not fans at that point of time. Anyways, cut the long story short, the manager told that cause its no longer summer, they usually don't stock any fans and so they will refund me back the full amount! Check this out! No arguments! No BS! Nothing! The manager just "automatic" offer to give me a FULL REFUND because they don't have stock to replace my faulty unit. He didn't tell me to go call the distributor/importer! He didn't tell me to wait till next summer! I was stunned! I mean, if it had happened in Singapore, I doubt I would have gotten such a good service. It is very true that Singapore is far lagging behind in terms of service standards!

However, I also agree with those people who said that consumers/customers need to "wake up their ideas"! Alot of them act as if they are kings/queens/divas! Hardly anyone ever say Thank You or smile to service staff. As consumers/customers I believe that we should do our part and be thankful for the service that service staff provide, be it cashiers or waiters or the aunty cleaning the tables. Talking about cleaning tables, when I was studying in Melbourne, I noticed that alot of people would clear up after themselves. Unlike Singapore where they would just leave their plates/trays/cups on the table and expect the aunties to clear it for them. This is very poor manners and social behaviour. My point is, good service has to start somewhere, why not let it start from us. Instead of bitching about it, lets show social grace and practice what we expect from others. Slowly and hopefully the rest of Singapore will follow...

Emperor

A few months back, i received a card from FOX car rental of the US that i will be refunded for overpaying. That was like something paid 3 years back and now they refunding me because of a class action suit against them.

How many time i got ripped in SG and still suffer in silence.

lawreo

imagine how many times u pay for something and when quality of parts received is not up to standards, there will always be excuses like "its like this", "not that bad mah". And they expect u to accept it. When you insist on redoing, they give u the attitude like you trying to play punk or be unreasonable. i mean, i am just trying to something done right. i pay good money for it. at least i must be satisfied with it, right?

sometimes, i got the feeling we, as customers, are being forced to accept below-par quality just because either we ourselves do not know enough or the quality of the service is just not there.

what i can't stand is that i am made to look like the 'bad' person for causing so much 'trouble'. sian. who wants to create unnecessary problems? i got more things to worry about, seriously.

i wonder any bros here encountered this problem?

muscleman

I have experienced this before, bro. I do understand.
I was made to wait for one month for the respraying of two mirrors. In the end, I was refunded and the boss still lamented that he has to pay for the credit card interest.
Can you imagine it take them four weeks to respray two small mirror? And yet the paint job is terrible and with paint chip. I thought it takes 5 days to respray the whole car. What's about two mirrors?