Terrible service in stores

[PattayaMale]

My Thai friend and I went to Central Festival Pattaya (Big C) to by a pair of shoes at the Nike store. We were the only 2 people in the store at the time. There were 3 employees in back by the cash register. We each tried on a display shoe and needed a different. We were in plain view of the employees as I saw them look at us when we entered.

 

None of them came forward to help as they seemed more interested in their cell phones. I stood up from where I was sitting trying on the shoe and waved it in the air. One looked up but went back playing with his mobile phone. So I called out, "Can anyone help me?". One of the employees started to walk towards me still on his phone. When he got to me I said. "I need a bigger size." He lowered his mobile but I could tell he still had someone on the line.

 

So I smiled and said,"Ready to help?" Which my Thai friend translated for him. He put the phone back to his ear and said something and hung up. And then helped us find what we wanted.

 

When I walked to the cashier to pay. The two remaining employees were still using their phones (maybe for games). I had my money out to pay and said, "How much?". They both looked at each other in a way that seemed to say to each other, "you help him." I repeated, "How much?" and went on to say with a smile, "You like your mobile phone too much." They smiled back as though caught............

 

It seems that many places except restaurants, the employees do not understand that they have been hired to service customers. The small shops where the owners are usually the staff know it very well. But in larger stores in the malls, they seem to think they have been hired to talk with each other or use their mobile phones.

 

Why is this? Or am I the only one that has noticed this?

[Gaybutton]

Why is this? Or am I the only one that has noticed this?

I don't know why, but with me usually it's exactly the opposite. The instant I walk in to a mom-and-pop store or the instant I express interest in a relatively expensive item in a large store, a staff member is hovering over me constantly, to the point that it can become very annoying.

 

Maybe there's no happy medium. You're either totally ignored or a staff member practically glues himself to you while you're trying to shop. I don't find too many Goldilocks clerks where everything is just right.

[Guest fountainhall]

a staff member is hovering over me constantly, to the point that it can become very annoying.

 

Exactly the same with me. Even when I ask them to move away so I can just 'look', they stick around like leeches. It drives me crazy. Is it because this is what they are told to do - or are they just ensuring they get the commission?

[Guest George]

It seems that many places except restaurants, the employees do not understand that they have been hired to service customers.

 

How very true PM that above statement of yours is, no more so from what I hear, than in the case of some employees that work in Go Go Bars.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

George.

[Gaybutton]

Is it because this is what they are told to do - or are they just ensuring they get the commission?

 

Probably both.

[Guest finally]

My Thai friend and I went to Central Festival Pattaya (Big C) to by a pair of shoes at the Nike store. We were the only 2 people in the store at the time. There were 3 employees in back by the cash register. We each tried on a display shoe and needed a different. We were in plain view of the employees as I saw them look at us when we entered.

 

None of them came forward to help as they seemed more interested in their cell phones. I stood up from where I was sitting trying on the shoe and waved it in the air. One looked up but went back playing with his mobile phone. So I called out, "Can anyone help me?". One of the employees started to walk towards me still on his phone. When he got to me I said. "I need a bigger size." He lowered his mobile but I could tell he still had someone on the line.

 

So I smiled and said,"Ready to help?" Which my Thai friend translated for him. He put the phone back to his ear and said something and hung up. And then helped us find what we wanted.

 

When I walked to the cashier to pay. The two remaining employees were still using their phones (maybe for games). I had my money out to pay and said, "How much?". They both looked at each other in a way that seemed to say to each other, "you help him." I repeated, "How much?" and went on to say with a smile, "You like your mobile phone too much." They smiled back as though caught............

 

It seems that many places except restaurants, the employees do not understand that they have been hired to service customers. The small shops where the owners are usually the staff know it very well. But in larger stores in the malls, they seem to think they have been hired to talk with each other or use their mobile phones.

 

Why is this? Or am I the only one that has noticed this?

 

[Guest finally]

Maybe: Pay peanuts and you get monkeys!!

[Guest MonkeySee]

Maybe: Pay peanuts and you get monkeys!!

I like monkeys!! I have also been in stores where the staff is in the back, plucking hairs or fixing the hairdo. Having been in Thailand awhile, I realize that looking good is much more important than customer service.

[Guest lvdkeyes]

I like monkeys!! I have also been in stores where the staff is in the back, plucking hairs or fixing the hairdo. Having been in Thailand awhile, I realize that looking good is much more important than customer service.

 

I remember someone asking a Thai if in Thailand was it appearance or substance. the reply was DEFINITELY substance...........as long as we look good.

[Guest MonkeySee]

Maybe: Pay peanuts and you get monkeys!!

Hey Finally, welcome aboard. You sound a little bit like the American government....fix it with money. Bailout here, bailout there, everybody gets a bailout

[Guest lvdkeyes]

Hey Finally, welcome aboard. You sound a little bit like the American government....fix it with money. Bailout here, bailout there, everybody gets a bailout

 

Could this be why American is the richest country in the world?

[Guest George]

I think that whilst complaining of the bad service one gets in the stores here in Thailand, it would do you well to remember just how bad the service is, back in some of your own countries. After having to make my first trip in a few years back to the UK last June, I can attest to just how diabolical the service is there these days. I found it to be almost none existent in some of the stores and shops I went into, where the staff serving in them displayed to me on the majority of occasions I went into them, a couldn't care less if they served me or not type of attitude.

 

For those members here that are from the UK, have you had reason to call the "local" service center of your bank lately? If you have had cause to as I did whilst in the UK, you will discover that the "local" service center is anything but bloody local and is in a part of the world many thousand miles away from where you would imagine it to be. You will also find yourself in a situation where you will be talking to someone that is supposedly there to assist you with your inquiry, where you are unable to understand a single word they are saying to you and them unable also, to understand a word you are saying to them. You wont believe how many years I think I added to my age, during the 6 and a half minutes of that particular "conversation"?

 

I don't know how much the rest of Europe has declined in comparison to the UK over recent years as far as the service industry is concerned, but apart from the States, where I still believe the service one receives the majority of times is superb and second to nowhere else in the world, I am of the opinion from what I have experienced, that it has deteriorated everywhere from the way it used to be even 10 years ago.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

George

[Guest fountainhall]

you will discover that the "local" service center is anything but bloody local and is in a part of the world many thousand miles away from where you would imagine it to be

 

I discovered this years ago. Then when on-line banking came in, I further discovered that my bank's software is not mackintosh compatible. This is one of the UK's largest banks and it was still true 2 years ago when I last checked! So I had a polite argument with the manager of the bank (where my account has been held for 37 years) and he agreed to accept faxed requests provided I follow up with the original documents for his files. That I consider to be good service.

 

I think that whilst complaining of the bad service one gets in the stores here in Thailand, it would do you well to remember just how bad the service is, back in some of your own countries.

 

I agree totally. And I accept that some of the service here is very good - in many of the hotels better than almost anywhere else in the world. My gripe is constantly being followed around in stores and told about this promotion or that discount - as though I cannot read. I know it's a small issue, but it's one that takes a tiny bit of business away from stores here, as I have the luxury of being able to shop on regular trips to Hong Kong without feeling like there's a performing monkey virtually on my shoulder.

[Guest MonkeySee]

Could this be why American is the richest country in the world?

I think it is more appropriate to say, Could this be why America WAS the richest country in the world? I think America is now one of the biggest debtor nations in the world.

 

[fedssocr]

I think it is more appropriate to say, Could this be why America WAS the richest country in the world? I think America is now one of the biggest debtor nations in the world.

 

Exactly. China basically owns the USA now.

[Gaybutton]

Poor service is definitely not exclusive to Thailand. In the USA, nearly every time I was in a grocery store trying to find something, if I asked an employee something like, "Where is the tartar sauce?", the answer would almost invariably be, "Aisle 6." On the rare occasions when the employee would actually take a moment to personally show me to the item, I would make sure to commend him to the store manager.

 

Sometimes the service is much better here in Thailand. In places such as grocery stores, hardware stores, etc, whenever I ask an employee where an item is, he will almost invariably take me to it.

 

My peeve is more with certain policies at some of the local stores. For example, when I first moved to Thailand, my boyfriend wanted a beanbag chair. We went to a local hardware store where they were advertising a promotion for them at 1400 baht. He picked out the chair he liked and we went to the cash register. A tag that said 1400 baht was attached to the chair. The cashier rang up the sale at 2000 baht. I called him on it. He said, "Promotion finish yesterday." I showed him the price tag and pointed out that the bean bag chairs on display had a big sign in front of them that also said 1400 baht. He wouldn't budge.

 

I asked to see the manager. A girl came over, who was no more the store manager than I was. I pointed out all of this to her too. She also wouldn't budge. She said the reason the prices were still in place was because they didn't have time yet to re-do the price tags. I mentioned the fact that it is 3:30pm and the store has been open since 10:00am. She still wouldn't budge. I asked her if the store intends to honor the price shown on the item or not. The answer was no.

 

A farang standing behind me and listening told me that he had recently spent a lot of money in the same store on floor tiles. He told me that a few boxes of them contained broken tiles. He returned those boxes to the store only a few hours after having bought and opened them, but the store refused to refund his money or even exchange the broken tiles.

 

Needless to say, that's one store where I no longer shop. But not all stores cheat customers in that manner.

 

One store that I do like is Big-C. Whenever I buy some sort of appliance or electronic device there, they always open the box and make sure the unit is working before I purchase it. Then they carefully re-pack the box. I bought a washing machine at Big-C. It came with a 1-year warranty. About two months later it broke down. I went back to Big-C with the warranty paperwork. They told me it's too late to replace the machine, but they told me where I could go locally to have the machine repaired under the warranty. There was no problem at all and my machine was promptly repaired with no charge to me.

 

Several months ago I bought a DVD player at Carrefour. In the store a check was done and it worked just fine. Of course, as soon as I got it home it wouldn't work. I took it back to Carrefour. They tested the unit and they also couldn't get it to work. They told me it must be a defective unit and they immediately replaced it with another one. They checked that one too and it was working. When I got it home it was working and that's the unit I've been using ever since.

 

Those are the kinds of stores where I prefer to shop. They do stand behind what they sell and they live up to their promises if anything goes wrong.

 

[Guest lvdkeyes]

I think it is more appropriate to say, Could this be why America WAS the richest country in the world? I think America is now one of the biggest debtor nations in the world.

 

It still is. If the rest of the world paid the US what it is owed, we could pay off our debts easily.

[Guest rainwalker]

As a previous poster brought up banking, I would like to take this is a different direction and commend HSBC here in Thailand, and my new true love who works there, for a magnificent job of helping a Farang through a complicated bit of business...

 

My branch in Farangland had an internal problem with some ATM cards so put a hold on 300 of them and phoned the holders to ask them to come in to that branch and obtain a new PIN.

 

Until that happened, the card would be "frozen" and unusable.

 

Naturally, being in LOS precluded me from a quick visit to do that, so I went to the Rama IV HSBC branch to try to sort things out.

 

(In a quick aside, I have a long standing 20+ year banking relationship with HSBC which they reward with "Premier" branded ATM and credit cards. As best I knew, in Farangland, that means free Traveler's cheques and not much else.)

 

 

The handsome young man, dressed in traditional Thai garb, who greeted me when I entered the Bangkok branch quickly queried me on what I needed and, as I explained my situation without identifying myself or mentioning my "Premier" status, took it upon himself to lead me to a small office to discuss the possible avenues to try and was able, in fluent English, to explain bank policies and procedures.

 

First he offered me something to drink and some fruit to munch on.

 

The first option was to use their ATM to change my PIN number but he informed me that that ran the risk of having the machine eat my card which would require that my local branch in the Great White North would need to request a new card (two weeks delay) and then mail it to me here with a possibility that it would never arrive due to theft.

 

We brainstormed other possible solutions for maybe 15 minutes (I was impressed with his range of creative possibilities) and then he decided to make a call to Farangland to try to find out if policies were in fact different there.

 

I informed him that it was well past business hours in the Land of Cold and Snow but he insisted on calling the Farangland head office to get the exact phone number that I could call to get closer to my goal of getting an ATM card that worked.

 

That done, he gave me the full rundown on what had to take place to reactivate the card and then as I was about to leave, asked me to show him my card.

 

When he saw the Premier label, he escorted me out of the small office and up the escalator to the mezzanine where they handled the "Premier" clients, put me in a large office, and then got more fruit and water for me.

 

He then asked if I wanted my shoulders massaged as I seemed a little tired.

 

WTF?? At a bank??

 

After I gently declined, although in different circumstances, I would be happy to experience his touch, he swiped my card on a card reader attached to the office's phone which immediately dialed a number in Farangland. Apparently, unknown to me, there is a 24 hour concierge for Premier folk and together the three of us came up with a solution that involved them setting a new PIN number for me and couriering that to the Thai bank care of the young man who would call me on its arrival.

 

As the Thai guy and I talked while on hold during our conversation with the concierge, I found out he was 23, unmarried, recently graduated from Thammasat University and had worked for the bank for just 6 months.

 

Before leaving, I asked to speak to his manager and, in front of him, explained to her that I was impressed with both my new BFF's manner as well as his understanding of a variety of policies and procedures after only six months on the job. I told her that the 45 minutes spent with the young man was the best experience that I had ever had in a bank.

 

It was a delight to watch him be gratefully modest while squirming.

 

The upshot? He has my number and will call later in the week when my new PIN arrives.

 

I may take him out for dinner, just as a reward for good service, you understand, and explain the meaning of the word "supererogatory".

[Guest GaySacGuy]

Maybe: Pay peanuts and you get monkeys!!

 

I guess the question I would ask is Just how much service would you provide if you were being paid $6 to $9 for a 10 hour shift?? Not much I would imagine.

 

Those of you who are being closely served are almost always in a store that pays a commission, rather than a wage. Therefore the people have to get some sales if they want to eat dinner.

[Gaybutton]

Those of you who are being closely served are almost always in a store that pays a commission, rather than a wage.

I never thought about that. I always thought it was wage plus commission. I didn't realize that it's commission only.

 

In some of the bars there are boys that show up to freelance dance whenever they wish (or do the "one-knee shuffle"). They are not paid. They're hoping to be taken off and get whatever they can get from the farang. The bar still charges an off fee for them, though. I think they also get their commission if a farang buys a drink for them.

[Guest GaySacGuy]

I never thought about that. I always thought it was wage plus commission. I didn't realize that it's commission only.

 

In some of the bars there are boys that show up to freelance dance whenever they wish (or do the "one-knee shuffle"). They are not paid. They're hoping to be taken off and get whatever they can get from the farang. The bar still charges an off fee for them, though. I think they also get their commission if a farang buys a drink for them.

 

There are bars in Phuket, where the boys that "work" there, get two meals and a place to sleep (to call it a room would be overstatement...more like a barracks, with just fans). If they miss work, they have to pay their own off fee. They only get what they make on tips, the two meals, and a place to sleep. No wonder there is lots of competetion among them for each customer.

[Guest MonkeySee]

I guess the question I would ask is Just how much service would you provide if you were being paid $6 to $9 for a 10 hour shift?? Not much I would imagine.

It is my opinion, increasing the wage will not sovle the problem. $6 to $9 dollar for a 10 hour shift is probably the going rate in Thailand. Training and good management skills would work better.

[Guest joseph44]

It is my opinion, increasing the wage will not sovle the problem. $6 to $9 dollar for a 10 hour shift is probably the going rate in Thailand. Training and good management skills would work better.

 

Please, please, comparing the Western way of offering service to the Asian way of offering service, as well as the Western wages and standards of living to the Asian.

It's impossible to compare these things and basically it shows a lack of cultural awareness if you do so.

 

Usually, an employee in a store gets a fixed monthly salary and a commission on top of that. In some cases, the commission is paid to all employees, calculated after the total turn over.

In stores where foreigners are the regular customers, the employees will back off a bit, because they know that foreigners would like to look around and if they need help, they'll ask for it.

Visit a store in the outback and you'll see that the staff is more "pushy" or helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest MonkeySee]

Please, please, comparing the Western way of offering service to the Asian way of offering service, as well as the Western wages and standards of living to the Asian.

It's impossible to compare these things and basically it shows a lack of cultural awareness if you do so.

I was in no way comparing the Western way of service to the Asian way. This is Thailand and most of us enjoy the way it is. My point is increasing wages is not the answer. If a shop owner, in a tourist area, wants to serve and attract westerners, then the answer would be training and not increased wages.

[Guest fountainhall]

If a shop owner, in a tourist area, wants to serve and attract westerners, then the answer would be training and not increased wages.

 

Sadly, as many business owners will tell you, provide training for the staff and they will just hop over to another similar-type business that pays more.