Monday, May 24, 2010

Petty Customer Service Policy

I am a loyal customer of Ya Kun . I love their coffee, and they have consistently delivered. I have no complaints on the food/drink at whichever Ya Kun branch I go to. Unfortunately, one Sunday, my brunch was spoilt by the Ya Kun coffee lady at my favourite Mt Faber Safra branch.


I like my kopi C extra milky, and Ya Kun charges more for Kopi C. Having paid up, i went to request more milk from the coffee lady. She added a few drops, and I stared at her, she sulkily responded 'Any more I would have to collect money'. WTF?! I have been there on numerous occassions and the other coffee lady always accede to my request generously with a smile. What is this? U think I am trying to get more bang for my buck by asking for more milk? Its just a matter of preference that I like milky coffee! Totally pissed.


Hubby helped me to send a complaint letter to Ya Kun, they responded very courteously. But to be fair, I responded to them again with details of the incident for greater accuracy. This time, their response was different:


Thank you for your additional information and your patience as we look into the matter you have raised. I am glad to let you know that the matter which you had brought up to our attention had been handled with.

Firstly, we would like to clarify that we practice the No-Questions-Asked, Return and Exchange policy where customers could exchange any unsatisfactory quality of food received for dine-in. However, we do charge another 20cents if customers are asking for more evaporated milk for their own preference, as this is to be fair to customers who are paying for the standard amount of evaporated milk.

We sincerely apologise for this terrible mistake caused by the previous brewer who did not follow our company policy, which leads to a misunderstanding between you and the staff involved. We also acknowledge that she did not handle the situation well when she should have taken her initiative to explain the situation to you. We have spoken to the outlet-in-charge regarding this matter and he has taken disciplinary actions against the staff involved. She has been warned for her rudeness towards customers and been advised to handle similar situations with prudence. We have also emphasised the importance of customer service to all staff at the outlet.

We sincerely apologise to you once again for our oversight in allowing such slip up in our service quality to take place in our outlet. We appreciate the time you taken to write to us and we sincerely hope for your continuous support for Ya Kun. To express our gratitude and apology, please accept the vouchers which we wish to send you. If you could email us back your address, we will mail the vouchers to you shortly.

We seek for your kind understanding in this matter and please rest assured that we will continue to improve ourselves to be of better service to you, our valued customers.

Once again, we thank you for your time and we look forward to serving you again soon.



WTF? Flimsy excuse masked under a web of politeness. This was my reply to them:


Dear ___,

First, I would like to add that it is not "a terrible" mistake by the kind (customer-oriented) coffee lady who previously acceded to my additional evaporated milk request with no charges.

Second, I would question your policy to charge extra."'To be fair to customers who are paying for the standard amount of evaporated milk" - How many customers are going to complain that they do not get extra milk for paying the same price? If you are worried that without this policy, many customers will come forward to ask for extra milk, then let me ask you, how many customers ask to have extra milk at all in the first place? How many are as crazy as me to like extra super milky coffee?! Another reason why this excuse doesnt hold - look at mixed vegetable rice stalls. They dun charge for extra rice, neither do they discount for asking less rice. In the same context, if customers order kopi C with less milk, where is the discount? Or Kopi with less sugar? Where is the discount? This is a very petty company policy. What are you worried about? People will bring bottles and ask you to fill up with milk? It is not as though we are asking you to publicize in the outlet 'We do not charge for extra milk' , which understandably, may encourage people to ask for extra.

Lastly, we are not unreasonable customers, we understand and accept your company policy. I'll just make sure I bring my own evaporated milk next time and buy kopi O from Ya Kun.



Where is your brain?! I loved the cynical ad posters in Ya Kun, they showed intellectual humour. Now they are proving otherwise.

Update: Turned out that my reply to them was deleted in the process of sending, and what they received was a blank email with just my signature. Blah! What a waste of my exciting response. The customer service assistant was smart enough to re-apologise despite seeing a blank email from me. And again requested us to provide an address for them to mail us a voucher. Alright, we'll keep it as that. But will I go Ya Kun again? I'll say, probably much less than before. That place holds less than fond memories after all these issues.

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