Monday, January 29, 2007

Another Bad Service Experience

In Singapore, good service is taken for granted, because we are expected to have good service. Bad service is remembered and condemned. But I think , at the rate our service level is deterioriating, its better to reverse my mentality - take bad service for granted and remember good service. Otherwise, my life will be very miserable because every other day I will be bearing grudges against the lousy service staff.

Or maybe the service level isnt bad, but its just me that service staff have something against, which is why I keep getting crap service.. what is it about the way I ask "Excuse me, can I have this in size _ please ?" that makes them forget I'm a customer and to behave professionally to me?

The civil service is not the only one with poor service, private sector is guilty of it too. This time , the bad service occurred at one of Singapore's oldest and most famous retail store in Orchard road . How many retail stores come to your mind? I can only think of 2 - other than the one I am going to talk about, the other one is Robinsons. I think Robinsons is fine, their service has always been friendly and good.

So anyway, the incident went like this. I was at their shoe department and asking the sales assistant to get shoes in my size. I did so at different intervals, and asking different staff. On my last try (3rd time), i approached a different sales assistant, she took the shoes from me, shouted across to another sales assistant 2metres away standing near the cashier: "Hey XXX, this shoe, size 7!"
Where did she go wrong?

1) A not too happy expression at receiving my request, and no acknowledgment to me at all

2) Shouting to her colleague in a 'commanding' tone. It made me seemed like I asked the wrong person because though she is standing there, the shoes I took is the responsibility of the other girl, hence she 'buay song' to help that girl do her work. (this is my conjecture). This is similar to the concept of restaurants where each waitress is given specific tables to serve, so if the diners not at your serving tables request you to do something because you pass by, you do not serve the diner, but shout across to the specific waitress the request of her diner. Also, is this a kopitiam? Only in coffeeshops do you hear shouting "kopi C, Teh C, Milo Peng!"

3) Even if their duties had been carved out this way (each person in charge of different shoes), even if she din want to help even though she is standing there, or maybe she is the manager (I doubt it, from the attire), she could have walked over and tell the person to get the shoes. If she had been in a hurry (I doubt it too, because she was standing still, not running off when I approached her), she could have acknowledged my request "Please hold on, I get my colleague to serve you"

I wonder if the day will come, where I will a) straightaway tell the sales assistant "Forget it. I dun want this already!" and throw everything down in front of them or b) What's this?!! U call ur manager here, I want to speak to your manager right now!!"

Maybe even such measures will not help because the store's website indicates that they welcome queries on their products and services, but is silent on the 'feedback' part.

Update (Feb 07): Couldnt resist emailing them my 'feedback'.. took them almost 5 days to respond. Still, I am satisfied. This is a model letter for responding to complaining customers.

Dear Ms ____
I refer to your e-mail. I am concerned to learn of the unpleasant experience you had when you were at our store. Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by the poor service of our staff.

I agree with you that the staff should have been more polite towards you. The staff concerned has been counselled and she has been reminded to be more courteous to all our customers. Please be assured that we will be monitoring her performance. I would like to assure you that customer satisfaction is of paramount importance to us at ___ and we will do our utmost to prevent a similar recurrence.

We appreciate the time taken to feedback to us as we believe that it is through feedback from customers that we are able to monitor and further improve our service standards.

We sincerely hope that this incident will not deter you from shopping at ___and we look forward to the pleasure of serving you when you next visit our store.



Just one small complaint: It would have been even better if they had included a voucher for me to shop there and as a gesture of appreciation.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

A lesson in Customer Service

Companies usu have 'star' awards to reward and recognise staff who have given good customer service, whether to internal or external customers. I only wish they dare to be radical enough to give 'razzie' award to those who give bad customer service , and that all contributors who name the nominees for razzie award will be anonymous. This would definitely pressure everyone to behave themselves!

Here's some from my company.
(All examples are phone calls)

Me: Hi, may I know who's that on the line?
her: this is LL here.
Me: Hi LL, I misplace my staff card, would like to know..
*interrupted*
her: Staff card is SH, u call SH

nb: LL and SH are sharing the same line
Me: So can I speak to SH then? Is she in?
her: SH only come in in the afternoon, everyday. You call her in the afternoon.
Me: ok thanks bye.

I'm not sure if u can detect the lack of customer service here. For me, her tone was 'i dun wish to help' and slightly curt. If I were her, I would have
1) not interrupted the caller, and try to see if I can answer the caller's queries. Since we are all in the same dept, and I am not new to the organisation, I should have at least some basic knowledge even if this is not my scope of work.

2) if I really have no answer to the question, I would have said "I'm sorry, I'm not too sure abt this. The person in charge is ___, but she wont be in until afternoon, can I get her to call you back?

Its whether u want to help or not.. anyway, she's a clerk.. and seems like most of the clerks in my company talk like this... not helpful, and in such brief english that u wonder is it becos they cant speak english properly, so they talk like that?

Here's a good one to illustrate (their mouth got gold, cannot open too long, lest the gold fall out)
Me: Hi, can i speak to XX please?
Clerk: XX not in.
(Cant u say "I'm sorry, XX is not around / on MC / on course / on leave , would you like to leave a message?")
Me: Ok thanks, bye.


Incident no 3:
Me: Hi, may i have the direct line of Mr XX in your dept?
Him: Where are you calling from huh?
Me: I'm calling from HQ
Him: The number is _ _ _ _. How come you call me huh? I'm not tel directory you know.
Me: The staff directory does not list such phone numbers, so I have to call your dept directly to get the number. May I have the number please?
Him: The number again, is
*I interrupted*
Me: No, no, u haven given me the number, u only gave me the first 4 digits. (He pissed me off with the 'again')
Him: If you know the system, all the telephone nos at my dept start with the same 4 digits:
6_ _ _
Me: Ok thank you . Bye

Gosh, this clerk was just plain rude... I went to complain to his manager who was totally understanding 'Yes, that's very unprofessional of him, I will have a word with him'.
Actually on hindsight, I think that dept was very busy that day, they had some ISO audit, so maybe he was involved. But still, there's no excuse for bad customer service.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

House Woes

My ROM went smoothly while wedding banquet has been compromised, and there is no pressure to have a banquet. However, my completion appointment for the resale flat that we are buying has been hanging there since Nov 06. The seller had financial difficulties and has been unable to cough up $$ to pay for the conservancy owe to HDB, nor the late penalty charges to us for delay of completion appt. I din mind waiting until the seller can come up with the money, hence the completion appt was fixed a few times, but the seller always couldnt pay and the whole thing just fell through. Worse, recently I discovered that CPF has started to deduct $ from my account for repayment of house loan + housing protection insurance.. huh? I am not even the legal owner yet! Is there no communication between CPF and HDB? Why is it that I do not possess the flat, and the housing loan has not been effected, but we are already paying the loan and insurance? Talk about world class government service and SQA organisations... this is their real standard!

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The most sought after junkie

Kate Moss's reputation as a cocaine user is well-known. Yet this has not dented her modelling opportunities. I came across a Sep 06 edition of Her World magazine and was flipping through it. The first few pages are always advertisements for branded luxury goods. Coincidentally, Kate Moss was the 'in' gal for that season. Three big brands used her as their ad model. I am surprised competing brands would use the same model, or are they all different girls who looked alike? Judge for yourself.



Dior



Louis Vuitton



Burberry

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

The unending polyclinic saga

NHG Polyclinic has screwed up big time as I mentioned in the previous post. Sadly, i used to have a better impression of Singhealth polyclinic until now. Yesterday I receive a letter from Singhealth polyclinic - it was a bill for $8 consultation on my last visit to the Geylang Polyclinic in Nov 06. I was not prescribe any medication then. I knew I had definitely paid because 1) I had an MC on that visit. You must have paid so that your MC will be stamped and considered valid 2) I need the receipt to claim medical reimbursement . Therefore, it was an insult to be billed again. I called the number given in the bill to dispute the billing. The lady on the line had the cheek to ask me if I have the receipt. If I had been a housewife who is unable to claim for medical reimbursement, would I have kept the receipt? Though fortunately I do have the receipt, not everyone would have kept something for so long. By the time they got home, the receipt would have been chucked into the bin. As if to pacify me, the lady gave the lame excuse that there must have been some double entry , hence double billing, and if it's true that I had paid, she would get her supervisor to write off the bill. Hello? Write off? U write off when people default payment. In this case, I did not default payment! Using the word 'write off' is like charity to me, 'oh since u cant pay, we'll write off', or an insult 'oh since u dun wish to pay and we cant do much abt it, we'll write off'. And if I did not keep the receipt? 'Oh since you cant prove, we'll still take your word and write off'.

The polyclinic also did not provide a convenient way for people to make payment as no self-addressed envelope was provided. Hey u asking me for money, u still expect me to pay for my own envelope and stamp? Or you expect me to take leave / time off to make payment since your clinic does not open at night, there is no way I can make it during the polyclinic opening hours. Dun tell me such non-payment cases are rare, hence there is no need to purposely have a system of self-addressed envelope etc... then if so, why din you bother to check properly the accounts before sending me the bill? If someone had bothered to check, the double entry would have been obvious because of the same date and proximity in timing. Billing people is such a sensitive thing, in this scenario, it is an accusation that the other party have not paid up when one should have done so by the time one leaves the polyclinic.

Update 13 Feb 07: This is exasperating! One month later, the same bill is generated and sent to me! I have already faxed my receipt to them and yet this still happened. Totally unacceptable. I called Singhealth head office "May I have the fax number of your Customer Service Manager?"
The person responded "What isit regarding?" I said "What does your Customer Service Manager handle?" Bo pian, she said "You attention the matter to Corporate Section, officer in charge"... huh? No CSM? Really? Or are you trying to hide something?

Update 22 Feb 07: Having gotten the fax number to the corporate person, I faxed them a letter of complaint:
Please see attached documents. One month ago (9 Jan), I receive an invoice for $8 for consultation charges of my visit to Geylang Polyclinic on 23 Nov 06. I called Geylang Polyclinic to tell them I paid the $8 on the day of the visit. The person-in-charge asked me to fax my receipt to her, which I did so promptly. However, it seems that nothing has been done because I still received the same bill, only this time, the bill indicates that the amount has been outstanding for 61 – 90 days. Why has the issue not been resolved till now? The person-in-charge mentioned it is a duplicate bill, one shouldn’t be repeating mistakes. Please ensure this does not happen again.

Here's the reply letter from them:
Dear Mdm,
I refer to your fax dated ...
Kindly ignore the invoices that were previously sent to you as we have indeed received payment from you.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused and do feel free to contact me at DID.... for any further queries.
Thank You

What's wrong with this response you may say? Well, it doesnt address the core issue! My concern is, STOP SENDING ME THE INVOICES! But here, no mention of "we have rectified our system ....we would make sure such incidence do not happen again "... instead, I am just told to ignore previous invoices. So what now? Wait for more invoices to come in, complain somemore? Or assume that they would not repeat their mistake without any assurance from them?

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Presenting yourself

Had the privilege to attend Jill Lowe’s presentation and dressing course at the start of the year. Was surprised to see a petite chinese lady instead of a tall angmoh lady. Jill is a Singaporean Chinese, but becos her surname in dialect is spelt as “Lowe”, it becomes pretty classed - Jill Lowe.

I found her very inspiring and motivating, because she is pretty sincere in imparting her knowledge and genuinely wants us to do better. Some pearls of wisdom from Jill:

- dun carry big handbags. Small bags are more classed.
- hang your handbag on your elbow at a distance from your body. The nearer the bag is to you, the older u become.
- every blusher applied 1cm below the lowest point of the nose, ages you by 5 years
- jeans / denim are for the farmers in the past. The fact that it’s a fashion item now doesn’t increase its ‘class’. So wear it sparingly
- brown eyeshadow is ‘class’, blue eyeshadow is ‘cheap’
-flat hair gives people the impression you are a poor man’s wife.. no wonder the indonesian ibus always have beehive hair.
-dun bend your knees when you are standing. makes you look cheap.

Alot of the things she said, contradicts with what I have been trying to do in my quest to improve my appearance. Eg: I should have short layered hair (the recommended styles were very ‘auntie’). But a lot of people have commented I look nicer with long hair. Some of the recommendations were in conflict with my personal tastes. Eg: I like pink lipsticks. But I am supposed to use orange-brown lipsticks to match my skintone. Yikes, so garish.

So how am I supposed to reconcile these? It’s easy (in theory). Jill is teaching me to dress and present myself such that bosses will look at me and think I am deserving of the promotion or at least think that I am a capable person. Previously I have been learning to doll up to look like a pretty girl so as to attract guys. But now, I want to attract bosses to my capability, not my looks. So, out with the long hair, and the pinks.