Singapore has improved but of course has still a long way to go.
There are many factors that has been put forward as contributors to
the not-as-good service in Singapore, things like the low salary,
unreasonable customers, long hours, pride (especially chinese and
asian pride of being a servant) etc.
You know the endless argument about the "customer is always
right" and then later on to the retail experts bringing on "the
customer is always right.....sometimes" antagonises the 2 parties.
In Singapore, I feel that there are too many service staff who take
the job very lightly. Who could blame them? Afterall, most service
staff salaries cannot be considered "livelihood" since it is so
low. But they fail to appreciate that having a job in Singapore is
most times a privilege and not an entitlement as most believed. My
sister was working in a retail environment and after 5 years there,
she was taking home $2200 being promoted to a supervisor. Low? I
dun think so. Cos her knew she had very low qualifications and she
worked hard and make sure the thing she is measured by, which is
SERVICE STANDARDS, she did well. If you choose to be in the service
sector, there is nothing lowly about those jobs! If you choose to
be in the service sector, then you bloody should have a high level
of service standard! Or else just leave! No one is forcing you to
SERVE!
As for customers, I think a very highly urbanised society like
ours make us a bunch of big headed people. I see this in Hong Kong,
I see this in Shanghai. I see this in Paris. And I definitely see
this in Singapore. Of cos not saying that we are babarians. But
what we did not realise is that, because of our better spending
power, we demand more. And in the process of demanding more, we
sometimes make the service staff or other people feel like shit.
Have you realised how impatient we have become? I hate all the
customer service calls they put me on call. Alot of them made me
wait. But I realised that I started getting irritated just seconds
into the call waiting. You know why? Because in Singapore, we want
everything and we want them NOW! And so when we see the service
staff not giving what we want, we become impatient, we want things
now, we want things our way. we give a black face, thinking without
our business, they will die.
I would like to think that the customer and service staff
relationship is like a husband and wife relationship. You
antagonise each other so much but it takes both parties to show
understanding and take the initiative to do something FIRST. You do
not have to wait for the service staff to be courteous first before
you show a smile. You do it first and hope that people reciprocate.
That is how life should be isnt it. Whatever it is, there is no
escaping this relationship and so it is up to how both parties
decide to work this relationship out.
yeh i agree...it's not just the fault of the service sector,
it's the fault of the consumers as well. On a whole, it's the fault
with singaporeans obsession for $$ and efficiency.
Singapore will never progress culturally unless we put a
national effort into culture rehabiliation. But of course, that
will never happen in Singapore Inc.
