A World Of Service

Service, a word goes with "lack of" most of the time here in Singapore. Well it's the poor quality of service that riles us. We complain about inattentive staff, the lack of product knowledge, pushy attitudes and rude demeanours. Well, if you take a good look at it, we're never gonna get good service from Singaporeans. I blame the meritocratic system. If one is taught to differentiate menial, low wage jobs from cushy, highly-paid ones with the context of ambition and progress for the nation (as we pledged each school morning), we associate service jobs negatively, and by extension we treat service staff with a fair amount of scorn. They too sense the scorn and serve it up in buckets. That's why many service persons in the island are foreigners looking for a way up and out. They bear with our incessant demands, get on with their chores and perhaps feign ignorance at our requests when they are too tired for the sake of a paycheck.

On the other hand, there are service folks who are in for the money. Commission drives them to persist and push. Unfortunately, that's all that motivates them, not the needs of the customer. I have met many a salesman at electronic stores who couldn't be bothered to learn the products they were selling. They had no clue whether what I pointed at was what I needed but would sell it to me anyway.

I was in Tokyo recently and true to the myth, the service culture is pervasive, personal and perpetual. Service staff are generally very nice. Even a trip to the 7-11 is a pleasant surprise. It's a culture thing I guess. That aside, I think the Japanese generally do everything with pride, and deliver to the best of their abilities. With everyone putting in 100% and getting acknowledged for their effort. Nice!

I met Tony from Tilam King over the weekend when some friends drove over to the shop at New Industrial Road to get a mattress. Tony explained to me how the bullshit sales persons at big retailers were merely pushing big ticket items without a care; that anti-dust mite protection was a generic ISO fabric/material requirement; that we made mattresses with additional springs that reinforced the saggy centre; that he could custom-make a single mattress for a customer. Tony is awesome. He knew everything there is to know about this products. He even did a thesis on the industry. And a great attitude to boot. We talked about how customers feel about buying large ticket items, why some wouldn't let go of a bad mattress because it cost them so much, and why he was considering PayPal as a payment option. Now that's a salesman. I am definitely going back there if I need something to sleep on.

So we're predisposed to treat sales people badly, sales people don't really care about their customers, and there are some stars in the business of doing a business who treat customers like friends. Service, lets just be better about it.