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.